Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program

Officials with the program have also studied videos of encounters between unknown objects and American military aircraft — including one released in August of a whitish oval object, about the size of a commercial plane, chased by two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Nimitz off the coast of San Diego in 2004.

Mr. Reid, who retired from Congress this year, said he was proud of the program. “I’m not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going,” Mr. Reid said in a recent interview in Nevada. “I think it’s one of the good things I did in my congressional service. I’ve done something that no one has done before.”

Two other former senators and top members of a defense spending subcommittee — Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, and Daniel K. Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat — also supported the program. Mr. Stevens died in 2010, and Mr. Inouye in 2012.

While not addressing the merits of the program, Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at M.I.T., cautioned that not knowing the origin of an object does not mean that it is from another planet or galaxy. “When people claim to observe truly unusual phenomena, sometimes it’s worth investigating seriously,” she said. But, she added, “what people sometimes don’t get about science is that we often have phenomena that remain unexplained.”

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James E. Oberg, a former NASA space shuttle engineer and the author of 10 books on spaceflight who often debunks U.F.O. sightings, was also doubtful. “There are plenty of prosaic events and human perceptual traits that can account for these stories,” Mr. Oberg said. “Lots of people are active in the air and don’t want others to know about it. They are happy to lurk unrecognized in the noise, or even to stir it up as camouflage.”

Still, Mr. Oberg said he welcomed research. “There could well be a pearl there,” he said.

In response to questions from The Times, Pentagon officials this month acknowledged the existence of the program, which began as part of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Officials insisted that the effort had ended after five years, in 2012.

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“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,” a Pentagon spokesman, Thomas Crosson, said in an email, referring to the Department of Defense.

But Mr. Elizondo said the only thing that had ended was the effort’s government funding, which dried up in 2012. From then on, Mr. Elizondo said in an interview, he worked with officials from the Navy and the C.I.A. He continued to work out of his Pentagon office until this past October, when he resigned to protest what he characterized as excessive secrecy and internal opposition.

“Why aren’t we spending more time and effort on this issue?” Mr. Elizondo wrote in a resignation letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

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Mr. Elizondo said that the effort continued and that he had a successor, whom he declined to name.

U.F.O.s have been repeatedly investigated over the decades in the United States, including by the American military. In 1947, the Air Force began a series of studies that investigated more than 12,000 claimed U.F.O. sightings before it was officially ended in 1969. The project, which included a study code-named Project Blue Book, started in 1952, concluded that most sightings involved stars, clouds, conventional aircraft or spy planes, although 701 remained unexplained.

Robert C. Seamans Jr., the secretary of the Air Force at the time, said in a memorandum announcing the end of Project Blue Book that it “no longer can be justified either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science.”

Mr. Reid said his interest in U.F.O.s came from Mr. Bigelow. In 2007, Mr. Reid said in the interview, Mr. Bigelow told him that an official with the Defense Intelligence Agency had approached him wanting to visit Mr. Bigelow’s ranch in Utah, where he conducted research.

Mr. Reid said he met with agency officials shortly after his meeting with Mr. Bigelow and learned that they wanted to start a research program on U.F.O.s. Mr. Reid then summoned Mr. Stevens and Mr. Inouye to a secure room in the Capitol.

“I had talked to John Glenn a number of years before,” Mr. Reid said, referring to the astronaut and former senator from Ohio, who died in 2016. Mr. Glenn, Mr. Reid said, had told him he thought that the federal government should be looking seriously into U.F.O.s, and should be talking to military service members, particularly pilots, who had reported seeing aircraft they could not identify or explain.

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The sightings were not often reported up the military’s chain of command, Mr. Reid said, because service members were afraid they would be laughed at or stigmatized.

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The meeting with Mr. Stevens and Mr. Inouye, Mr. Reid said, “was one of the easiest meetings I ever had.”

He added, “Ted Stevens said, ‘I’ve been waiting to do this since I was in the Air Force.’” (The Alaska senator had been a pilot in the Army’s air force, flying transport missions over China during World War II.)

During the meeting, Mr. Reid said, Mr. Stevens recounted being tailed by a strange aircraft with no known origin, which he said had followed his plane for miles.

None of the three senators wanted a public debate on the Senate floor about the funding for the program, Mr. Reid said. “This was so-called black money,” he said. “Stevens knows about it, Inouye knows about it. But that was it, and that’s how we wanted it.” Mr. Reid was referring to the Pentagon budget for classified programs.

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Contracts obtained by The Times 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 funding went to Mr. Bigelow’s company, Bigelow Aerospace, which hired subcontractors and solicited research for the program.

Under Mr. Bigelow’s direction, the company modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena. Researchers also studied people who said they had experienced physical effects from encounters with the objects and examined them for any physiological changes. In addition, researchers spoke to military service members who had reported sightings of strange aircraft.

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“We’re sort of in the position of what would happen if you gave Leonardo da Vinci a garage-door opener,” said Harold E. Puthoff, an engineer who has conducted research on extrasensory perception for the C.I.A. and later worked as a contractor for the program. “First of all, he’d try to figure out what is this plastic stuff. He wouldn’t know anything about the electromagnetic signals involved or its function.”

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.

“Internationally, we are the most backward country in the world on this issue,” Mr. Bigelow said in an interview. “Our scientists are scared of being ostracized, and our media is scared of the stigma. China and Russia are much more open and work on this with huge organizations within their countries. Smaller countries like Belgium, France, England and South American countries like Chile are more open, too. They are proactive and willing to discuss this topic, rather than being held back by a juvenile taboo.”

By 2009, Mr. Reid decided that the program had made such extraordinary discoveries that he argued for heightened security to protect it. “Much progress has been made with the identification of several highly sensitive, unconventional aerospace-related findings,” Mr. Reid said in a letter to William Lynn III, a deputy defense secretary at the time, requesting that it be designated a “restricted special access program” limited to a few listed officials.

A 2009 Pentagon briefing summary of the program prepared by its director at the time asserted that “what was considered science fiction is now science fact,” and that the United States was incapable of defending itself against some of the technologies discovered. Mr. Reid’s request for the special designation was denied.

Mr. Elizondo, in his resignation letter of Oct. 4, said there was a need for more serious attention to “the many accounts from the Navy and other services of unusual aerial systems interfering with military weapon platforms and displaying beyond-next-generation capabilities.” He expressed his frustration with the limitations placed on the program, telling Mr. Mattis that “there remains a vital need to ascertain capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation.”

Mr. Elizondo has now joined Mr. Puthoff and another former Defense Department official, Christopher K. Mellon, who was a deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, in a new commercial venture called To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science. They are speaking publicly about their efforts as their venture aims to raise money for research into U.F.O.s.

In the interview, Mr. Elizondo said he and his government colleagues had determined that the phenomena they had studied did not seem to originate from any country. “That fact is not something any government or institution should classify in order to keep secret from the people,” he said.

For his part, Mr. Reid said he did not know where the objects had come from. “If anyone says they have the answers now, they’re fooling themselves,” he said. “We do not know.”

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But, he said, “we have to start someplace.”

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FCC vote won’t end net neutrality fight

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) vote this week to repeal net neutrality won’t end the fight over the regulation.

Opponents are already lining up to sue the agency, which voted 3-2 to scrap the rules on Thursday, while Democrats are pushing legislation that would prevent the repeal from going into effect.

The FCC said that the net neutrality repeal has to be approved by the Office of Management and Budget before it can go into effect — a process that could take months.

As a result of Thursday’s vote, internet service providers will no longer be prohibited from blocking or throttling websites, or charging sites for faster speeds. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan will also pre-empt states from passing their own net neutrality regulations.

Pai argues that he’s not leaving the industry without oversight, saying that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will be able to take the FCC’s place as the internet’s watchdog and prevent broadband providers from abusing their powers. But critics say that the FTC is unequipped to ensure that the companies play fairly.

It’s still unclear what changes internet users will see under the new system. The broadband industry, which was the driving force behind the rollback, is trying to assure consumers that their internet experience will not chance.

Michael Powell, a former FCC chairman who heads the cable and internet provider trade group NCTA, said the industry is not interested in discriminating against certain websites.

“Your internet Thursday afternoon will not change in any significant or substantial way from the internet you’re experiencing today, nor will it be different next week, nor will it be different on a Thursday a year from now,” Powell told reporters on Wednesday.

But net neutrality’s supporters warn that deregulating the internet gatekeepers is going to upend the way startups can harness the internet to grow their businesses. Broadband companies like Verizon and Comcast, critics warn, will be able to charge users more for certain content, or prioritize their own content with better speeds.

“Americans should worry about their broadband bills and the prices they pay for online applications and services rising not only because many areas lack broadband choice, but also because some sites and web services may have to pay for prioritized access online, ultimately passing those costs on to consumers,” Chris Lewis, vice president of the consumer group Public Knowledge, said in a statement. “We don’t know how far broadband providers will take this gatekeeper power.”

Net neutrality supporters aren’t waiting to find out. Angered by the FCC’s move to pre-empt state laws, Democratic attorneys general in states like New York, Oregon and Washington have already announced their intention to sue the agency to preserve the rules. They’ll be joined by public interest groups, including the National Hispanic Media Coalition and Free Press.

“I don’t think the courts are going to approve of the wholesale deregulation of telecom,” Rep. Ro KhannaRohit (Ro) KhannaOvernight Tech: Net neutrality repeal sparks backlash | Dems push FCC to delay repeal vote | Apple, Ireland reach deal over B tax bill | Facebook launches Messenger for kids GOP bets that tax bill will unlock corporate cash overseas Congress must end American support for Saudi war in Yemen MORE (D-Calif.) predicted in an interview with The Hill on Wednesday.

Senate and House Democrats hope to use their authority under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to stop the repeal. CRA bills require a simple majority in the House and Senate, plus the president’s signature, to overturn recently passed legislation. On Friday, Senate Minority Leader Charles SchumerCharles (Chuck) Ellis SchumerAmerica isn’t ready to let Sessions off his leash Schumer celebrates New York Giants firing head coach: ‘About time’ GOP should reject the left’s pessimism and the deficit trigger MORE (D-N.Y.) said that he would be forcing a vote on the issue.

Passing the legislation will be difficult, since Republicans control both chambers. But a few GOP members have come out in opposition to the FCC’s repeal. Evan Greer, an activist with the pro-net neutrality group Fight for the Future, admits that a CRA bill is a “hail Mary,” but predicts that lawmakers will be under enormous pressure to preserve the hugely popular rules.

“Ajit Pai has created a political crisis for his own party by pushing for such an extreme proposal,” Greer told The Hill on Friday.

Fight for the Future has helped lead the massive grass-roots opposition to Pai’s efforts. Greer says the group will be turning its focus to lighting a fire under Congress by forcing lawmakers to take a position on the issue and tracking them with an online scorecard.

“We’re going to be putting every single member of Congress’s face on a webpage and showing whether or not they’ve taken this action to support their constituent’s basic right to use the internet,” she said.

The telecom industry and most Republicans are pushing for legislation that would replace the FCC’s rules, hoping to end the regulatory back-and-forth over net neutrality that will likely ensue whenever the White House switches hands.

But a number of Democrats believe that any bill that Republicans come up with will fall short of the FCC’s protections. In any case, they’ll be hesitant to come to the negotiating table while a lawsuit is in progress and when the issue can be used during the midterm elections.

“I thought the Republicans aren’t for unnecessary lawmaking,” Khanna said. “Here we have good law, we just need an FCC that will enforce the law.”

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