Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hi brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. During the late nineteen forties and early nineteen fifties, postwar America, possibly fueled by a burgeoning sci fi film genre, went through a surge of reported UFO sightings. In response, the U. S Air Force created a couple of short lived programs called Project Sign and
Project Grudge to look into the phenomenon. They were followed up by Project blue Book, a large scale government study that lasted from nineteen fifty two to nineteen sixty nine. Ordered into existence by Major General Charles P. Cable, a former Director of Intelligence at the Air Force, Project blue Book painstakingly gathered twelve thousand, six hundred and eighteen reports
about UFOs. After it was determined that the overwhelming majority of these had natural explanations and that there wasn't enough data to evaluate the others properly, support for the effort dwindled. Officially, Project Bluebook was terminated in December of nineteen sixty nine. But did the US government's interest in aerial aberrations die with it? Evidently not, because we learned in mid December that the Pentagon launched yet another UFO research program in
the late two thousands. The story was broken on December fourteenth by near simultaneous reports that appeared in Political Magazine and The New York Times. According to newly unclassified documents obtained by the press, a total of almost twenty two million dollars was quietly spent over a four year period on a project dubbed the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program or a TIP. The major driving force behind its creation was the now retired Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada.
One of Reid's repeat campaign contributors was businessman Bob Bigelow, a fellow Nevaden who owns the Budget Suites of America hotel chain, as well as a startup called Bigelow Airspace, which develops space station modules. He's also a huge UFO enthusiast. In a sixty minutes interview in May of sixteen, Bigelow said that he believes extraterrestrial visitors have maintained a presence on planet Earth. Read himself has a fascination with cosmic mysteries.
According to one of his former spokeswomen, this fact is obvious to anyone who's ever talked to the retired senator for over sixty seconds. At some point in two thousand seven, Bigelow was reportedly visited by a Defense Intelligence Agency official who expressed an interest in his UFO research. As an anonymous ex congressional staffer told Politico, there was some concern at the time that the Chinese or Russians might be developing experimental new aircraft that could possibly pose a threat
to America's national security. Bigelow later told Read about the visit, prompting the Senator to contact the d I A. When Read learned the agency was interested in setting up a new government funded UFO program, he decided to lend a hand to get the project started. Read approached the late senators Daniel in Away, a Democrat from Hawaii, and Ted Stevens,
a Republican from Alaska. It was an easy sell. Stevens was particularly enthusiastic about the idea because he claimed to have once been tailed by some unrecognizable aircraft during his service as an Air Force pilot in World War Two. Using the Pentagon's classified program's budget, Read in a way and Steven's secretly set some money aside for the upstart. A tip the bulk of the cash went to Bigelow Airspace, which used it to finance research entire subcontractors on the
government's behalf. With the company's guidance, a few buildings in Las Vegas were converted into storage facilities for objects with alleged ties to UFO related incidents. The job of heading a TIP fell to one Louise Alzando, a intelligence officer
with the Department of Defense. Although many aspects of the program remain classified, we do know that staffers and contractors put together and as yet unreleased, four hundred and ninety page report chronicling several decades worth of UFO sightings in the United States and elsewhere. What's more, the initiative rounded up video and audio recordings from supposeded counters between human onlookers and mysterious airborne objects. A TIPS started receiving tech
Pair funds late in two thousand and eight. The following year, Senator Reid attempted to upgrade the program's level of security, but his efforts failed. Then, in twelve, the Pentagon cut off a TIPS cash supply altogether. According to Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White, it was determined that there were other higher priority issues that merited funding and that it was in the best interest of the Department of Defense to make
a change. Yet, some sources claim that the Pentagon is still quietly investigating new UFO reports made by those in the Armed Forces. If this is true, then a TIP may continue to exist in some form despite its current lack of financial support. For his part, Alesando felt the initiative wasn't getting enough respect within the d D. After twenty two years of service, he resigned from the Pentagon
in October of seventeen. Before he left, however, Alesando persuaded his colleagues to release three formerly secret videos to the public. These were raw footage taken by cockpit cameras in US fighter jets and a pew to show strange objects traveling through the atmosphere at high rate of speed. To Alisando, the evidence suggests that, in his own words, we may not be alone, whatever that means. Meanwhile, a number of
scientists have given more skeptical assessments. Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell says the object in one of these newly released videos is probably some sort of reflection. Despite Alisando's cryptic statements, Sarah Seeger of m I T was quick to remind The New York Times that unidentified shapes in the sky aren't necessarily extraterrestrial vessels. And Furthermore, astronomer Seth Shostak believes the decision to include Bigelow, someone with firm pre existing views
on alien visitations, raises doubts about the program's objectivity. So are we alone in the universe or not? Humanity doesn't have nearly enough data to answer that question. All we can do right now is keep our minds sharp and our eyes skyward. Today's episode was written by Mark Mancheni and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other mysterious topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot com. M