Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program Identified

May explain many things. Pat Byrnes, in The New Yorker.

 New York Times:

Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program  —  WASHINGTON — In the $600 billion annual Defense Department budgets, the $22 million spent on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was almost impossible to find.  —  Which was how the Pentagon wanted it.

Discussion:

Emily Stewart / Vox:   A bizarre effort to find UFOs involved Harry Reid and the lead singer of Blink-182

Teri Webster / TheBlaze:   Secretive Pentagon UFO investigations revealed by NYT investigative piece

Ed Driscoll / Instapundit:   DISPATCHES FROM THE PARTY OF SCIENCE:  —  The Defense Department …

Brennan Weiss / Business Insider:   The Pentagon spent $22 million on a shadowy program to investigate UFOs

Adam Rosenberg / Mashable:   Somewhere in Las Vegas, there's a warehouse containing debris from UFOs

RELATED:

 New York Times:

2 Navy Airmen and an Object That 'Accelerated Like Nothing I've Ever Seen'  —  The following recounts an incident in 2004 that advocates of research into U.F.O.s have said is the kind of event worthy of more investigation, and that was studied by a Pentagon program that investigated U.F.O.s.

Discussion:

Brennan Weiss / Business Insider:   Former Navy pilot describes bizarre encounter with aircraft with 'no plumes, wings …

TBogg / Raw Story:   WATCH: US Naval officers reveal 2004 encounter with possible UFO in extraordinary New York Times interview

 Bryan Bender / Politico:

The Pentagon's Secret Search for UFOs  —  The Pentagon, at the direction of Congress, a decade ago quietly set up a multi-million dollar program to investigate what are popularly known as unidentified flying objects—UFOs.  —  The “unidentified aerial phenomena” claimed to have been seen …

Discussion:

Benjamin Hart / New York Magazine:   Reports: Pentagon Spent Millions on UFO Research

Alexi McCammond / Axios:   Inside the Pentagon's multi-million dollar program to explore UFOs

Jonah Bennett / The Daily Caller:   Pentagon Admits To Creating Secret Program To Investigate UFOs

Justin Baragona / Mediaite:   Twitter Goes Nuts Over Pentagon's Secret UFO Program: ‘I Want to Believe’

This reporter is under the impression that many airline & military pilots have seen, if not actual objects, at least lights that have defied the known laws of aerodynamics, gravity & all that stuff, but were wary of making reports, not wanting to "retire" from their swell gigs directly to a psychiatric facility. Worth investigation? DoD's patented waste fraud & abuse? Loons in Congress, as highlighted above? If any of this is remotely real, & interstellar travel ain't hap'nin far's we know (time travel seems even less likely) are we talking China? Russia? Nazis from inside the North (or South) Pole,
or hiding on Luna since WWII? Inquiring minds inquire.Frank Zappa - "Inca Roads"