Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program

Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program
SuccessorUnidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force
Formation2007
Dissolved2012
TypeUnited States governmental study
Legal statusSecret program, formally disbanded
PurposeStudy of unidentified flying objects
Budget
$22 million over 5 years

The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)[1] was an unclassified but unpublicized investigatory effort funded by the United States Government to study unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP).[2] The program was first made public on December 16, 2017. The program began in 2007, with funding of $22 million over the five years until the available appropriations were ended in 2012.[3][4][5] The program began in the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.[6]

According to the Department of Defense, the AATIP ended in 2012 after five years, however reporting suggested that U.S. government programs to investigate UFOs continued.[7] This was confirmed in June 2020 with the acknowledgement of a similar military program, the unclassified but previously unreported Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force.[8]

  1. ^ Siese, April (December 16, 2017). "The Pentagon has confirmed its $22M program to investigate UFOs". Quartz. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  2. ^ Blumenthal, Ralph; Kean, Leslie (May 14, 2020). "Navy Reports Describe Encounters With Unexplained Flying Objects – While some of the encounters have been reported publicly before, the Navy records are an official accounting of the incidents, including descriptions from the pilots of what they saw". The New York Times. Retrieved May 15, 2020.
  3. ^ Cooper, Helene; Blumenthal, Ralph; Kean, Leslie (December 16, 2017). "Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program". The New York Times. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  4. ^ Bender, Bryan (December 16, 2017). "The Pentagon's Secret Search for UFOs". Politico. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  5. ^ Benson, Eric (March 21, 2018). "Harry Reid on What the Government Knows About UFOs". New York Magazine. Retrieved March 29, 2018.
  6. ^ Greenwood, Max (December 16, 2017). "Pentagon acknowledges program to investigate UFO encounters: report". The Hill. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  7. ^ Blumenthal, Ralph (December 18, 2017). "On the Trail of a Secret Pentagon U.F.O. Program". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
  8. ^ Blumenthal, Ralph (July 23, 2020). "No longer in the shadows, Pentagon's UFO unit will make some findings public". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 23, 2020. Republished without video and hyperlinks as Blumenthal, Ralph (July 23, 2020). "No longer in the shadows, Pentagon's UFO unit will make some findings public". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved July 23, 2020.