Government UFO Programs

What’s the story?

Politico and the New York Times broke stories over the weekend about a Pentagon-funded program focused on studying Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. But that was not the first program of its kind, as the federal government has been researching UFOs for over 60 years now.

The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, funded with $22 million of "black money", was initiated in 2007 and supposedly disbanded in 2012. Yet the military official in charge of the program, Luis Elizondo, did not resign from the Pentagon until October 2017. He insists that officials previously affiliated with the program have continued to investigate reports by service members until the present day.

The Air Force has been studying UFOs since 1942, so the Threat Identification Program shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Project Sight, Project Grudge and then Project Blue Book investigated over 12,000 sightings, 701 of which were never explained before Project Blue Book was officially disbanded in 1970.

The federal funding focus had shifted by then to space exploration. The first U.S. Moon landing was in 1969.

In 1973, that left a young, Georgia politician named Jimmy Carter, with no one to report his possible UFO sighting to but the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomenon (NICAP), a civilian research group.

What was the federal government doing about sightings from 1970 to 2007? That's classified, we guess.

And now the focus has turned again to the far reaches of space. President Trump signed a directive calling for manned missions to the Moon and Mars last week.

What do you think?

Should the federal government be investigations UFOs? Should we be investing in space travel or the building of bases on the Moon? Have you seen a UFO?

Tell us in the comments what you think, then use the Take Action button to tell your reps!

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— Asha Sanaker