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The US Military Admits It Spent $22 Million Investigating UFOs (boston.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Joosy writes, "Until 2012 the Pentagon had a program, the 'Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program', that tracked unidentified flying objects." An anonymous reader writes:
The Pentagon finally acknowledged the existence of the $22 million program today to the New York Times, while also claiming that they closed the program five years ago. "But its backers say that, while the Pentagon ended funding for the effort at that time, the program remains in existence. For the past five years, they say, officials with the program have continued to investigate episodes brought to them by service members, while also carrying out their other Defense Department duties."
Over the years the program "produced documents that describe sightings of aircraft that seemed to move at very high velocities with no visible signs of propulsion, or that hovered with no apparent means of lift. Officials with the program have also studied videos of encounters between unknown objects and U.S. military aircraft." But ultimately, a Pentagon spokesman said, "It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding, and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change."
Over the years the program "produced documents that describe sightings of aircraft that seemed to move at very high velocities with no visible signs of propulsion, or that hovered with no apparent means of lift. Officials with the program have also studied videos of encounters between unknown objects and U.S. military aircraft." But ultimately, a Pentagon spokesman said, "It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding, and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change."
Most people don't know that the term "UFOB" (from which we get "UFO") was itself originally a USAF radar operator term. It referred to anything on a radar screen which wasn't obviously noise and hadn't yet been identified.
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UFO in the military means something different than in pop-culture. In pop-culture, it means aliens and flying saucers, and ray-guns, and Martians. In the military, it means an unidentified flying object, including flights by non-cleared personnel like hobbyists or foreign surveillance drones. Every one of our "drones" in Afghanistan would be a UFO to the Afghan military if we didn't seek clearance from them first.
My guess is the name "UFO" wreaked of bad smell over the years and the military just changed the name and defunded the old one. They likely *still* want to investigate any sightings or blips on the radar to record when and where China or Russia are running spy drones over American soil or international waters, and hence whatever personnel are conducting those investigations are still funded, just under a better name than UFOs.
On behalf of everyone who's experienced something that doesn't have a conventional explanation... go fuck yourself.
Have you ever noticed how hostile are the people who don't want anyone to point out they've imagined stuff? The closer a person gets to the threshold of admitting they've grasped onto a phony supernatural or extraterrestrial explanation for something, the angrier they get at everyone else who rolls their eyes because they've already figured out it was phony. Based on your anger, you're now very close to finally admitting that to yourself.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
They would have been right, seeing how the few of them (which survived their epidemic and intercine wars), were wiped out by the subsequent arrival of the white men , and all the war , conquest, and pushing away their population, new disease etc...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Even without taking into consideration the notion of aliens, flying saucers or any similar phenomena, this program makes sense if it helps sort out problems in radar imaging, remote sensing or pilot training/target identification.
Even if you think this $22 million was wasted "because UFOs don't exist", you have to admit that a military program to explain simultaneous failure of radar systems is money well spent if some natural or other phenomenon can be identified as tricking both sensing networks and pilots.
Even without that kind of hard-headed practical purpose, why *not* have some kind of office to investigate weird aerial incidents, especially if they are backed by pilot testimony, radar data, FLIR imagery, etc. It's not like it would take a ton of money, especially measured in military scales.