In response to questions from The New York Times, Pentagon officials this month acknowledged the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, which began as part of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Officials insisted that the effort had ended after five years, in 2012.
Contracts obtained by NYT show a congressional appropriation of just under $22 million beginning in late 2008 through 2011. The money was used for management of the program, research and assessments of the threat posed by the objects.
The program collected video and audio recordings of reported U.F.O. incidents, including footage from a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet showing an aircraft surrounded by some kind of glowing aura traveling at high speed and rotating as it moves. The Navy pilots can be heard trying to understand what they are seeing. “There’s a whole fleet of them,” one exclaims. Defense officials declined to release the location and date of the incident.