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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hi brain

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Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. During the late nineteen forties and

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Speaker 1: early nineteen fifties, postwar America, possibly fueled by a burgeoning

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Speaker 1: sci fi film genre, went through a surge of reported

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Speaker 1: UFO sightings. In response, the U. S Air Force created

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Speaker 1: a couple of short lived programs called Project Sign and

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Speaker 1: Project Grudge to look into the phenomenon. They were followed

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Speaker 1: up by Project blue Book, a large scale government study

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Speaker 1: that lasted from nineteen fifty two to nineteen sixty nine.

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Speaker 1: Ordered into existence by Major General Charles P. Cable, a

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Speaker 1: former Director of Intelligence at the Air Force, Project blue

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Speaker 1: Book painstakingly gathered twelve thousand, six hundred and eighteen reports

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Speaker 1: about UFOs. After it was determined that the overwhelming majority

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Speaker 1: of these had natural explanations and that there wasn't enough

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Speaker 1: data to evaluate the others properly, support for the effort dwindled. Officially,

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Speaker 1: Project Bluebook was terminated in December of nineteen sixty nine.

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Speaker 1: But did the US government's interest in aerial aberrations die

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Speaker 1: with it? Evidently not, because we learned in mid December

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Speaker 1: that the Pentagon launched yet another UFO research program in

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Speaker 1: the late two thousands. The story was broken on December

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Speaker 1: fourteenth by near simultaneous reports that appeared in Political Magazine

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Speaker 1: and The New York Times. According to newly unclassified documents

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Speaker 1: obtained by the press, a total of almost twenty two

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Speaker 1: million dollars was quietly spent over a four year period

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Speaker 1: on a project dubbed the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program

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Speaker 1: or a TIP. The major driving force behind its creation

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Speaker 1: was the now retired Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada.

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Speaker 1: One of Reid's repeat campaign contributors was businessman Bob Bigelow,

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Speaker 1: a fellow Nevaden who owns the Budget Suites of America

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Speaker 1: hotel chain, as well as a startup called Bigelow Airspace,

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Speaker 1: which develops space station modules. He's also a huge UFO enthusiast.

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Speaker 1: In a sixty minutes interview in May of sixteen, Bigelow

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Speaker 1: said that he believes extraterrestrial visitors have maintained a presence

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Speaker 1: on planet Earth. Read himself has a fascination with cosmic mysteries.

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Speaker 1: According to one of his former spokeswomen, this fact is

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Speaker 1: obvious to anyone who's ever talked to the retired senator

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Speaker 1: for over sixty seconds. At some point in two thousand seven,

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Speaker 1: Bigelow was reportedly visited by a Defense Intelligence Agency official

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Speaker 1: who expressed an interest in his UFO research. As an

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Speaker 1: anonymous ex congressional staffer told Politico, there was some concern

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Speaker 1: at the time that the Chinese or Russians might be

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Speaker 1: developing experimental new aircraft that could possibly pose a threat

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Speaker 1: to America's national security. Bigelow later told Read about the visit,

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Speaker 1: prompting the Senator to contact the d I A. When

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Speaker 1: Read learned the agency was interested in setting up a

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Speaker 1: new government funded UFO program, he decided to lend a

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Speaker 1: hand to get the project started. Read approached the late

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Speaker 1: senators Daniel in Away, a Democrat from Hawaii, and Ted Stevens,

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Speaker 1: a Republican from Alaska. It was an easy sell. Stevens

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Speaker 1: was particularly enthusiastic about the idea because he claimed to

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Speaker 1: have once been tailed by some unrecognizable aircraft during his

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Speaker 1: service as an Air Force pilot in World War Two.

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Speaker 1: Using the Pentagon's classified program's budget, Read in a way

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Speaker 1: and Steven's secretly set some money aside for the upstart.

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Speaker 1: A tip the bulk of the cash went to Bigelow Airspace,

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Speaker 1: which used it to finance research entire subcontractors on the

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Speaker 1: government's behalf. With the company's guidance, a few buildings in

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Speaker 1: Las Vegas were converted into storage facilities for objects with

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Speaker 1: alleged ties to UFO related incidents. The job of heading

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Speaker 1: a TIP fell to one Louise Alzando, a intelligence officer

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Speaker 1: with the Department of Defense. Although many aspects of the

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Speaker 1: program remain classified, we do know that staffers and contractors

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Speaker 1: put together and as yet unreleased, four hundred and ninety

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Speaker 1: page report chronicling several decades worth of UFO sightings in

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Speaker 1: the United States and elsewhere. What's more, the initiative rounded

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Speaker 1: up video and audio recordings from supposeded counters between human

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Speaker 1: onlookers and mysterious airborne objects. A TIPS started receiving tech

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Speaker 1: Pair funds late in two thousand and eight. The following year,

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Speaker 1: Senator Reid attempted to upgrade the program's level of security,

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Speaker 1: but his efforts failed. Then, in twelve, the Pentagon cut

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Speaker 1: off a TIPS cash supply altogether. According to Pentagon spokeswoman

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Speaker 1: Dana White, it was determined that there were other higher

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Speaker 1: priority issues that merited funding and that it was in

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Speaker 1: the best interest of the Department of Defense to make

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Speaker 1: a change. Yet, some sources claim that the Pentagon is

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Speaker 1: still quietly investigating new UFO reports made by those in

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Speaker 1: the Armed Forces. If this is true, then a TIP

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Speaker 1: may continue to exist in some form despite its current

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Speaker 1: lack of financial support. For his part, Alesando felt the

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Speaker 1: initiative wasn't getting enough respect within the d D. After

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Speaker 1: twenty two years of service, he resigned from the Pentagon

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Speaker 1: in October of seventeen. Before he left, however, Alesando persuaded

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Speaker 1: his colleagues to release three formerly secret videos to the public.

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Speaker 1: These were raw footage taken by cockpit cameras in US

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Speaker 1: fighter jets and a pew to show strange objects traveling

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Speaker 1: through the atmosphere at high rate of speed. To Alisando,

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Speaker 1: the evidence suggests that, in his own words, we may

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Speaker 1: not be alone, whatever that means. Meanwhile, a number of

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Speaker 1: scientists have given more skeptical assessments. Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell says

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Speaker 1: the object in one of these newly released videos is

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Speaker 1: probably some sort of reflection. Despite Alisando's cryptic statements, Sarah

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Speaker 1: Seeger of m I T was quick to remind The

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Speaker 1: New York Times that unidentified shapes in the sky aren't

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Speaker 1: necessarily extraterrestrial vessels. And Furthermore, astronomer Seth Shostak believes the

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Speaker 1: decision to include Bigelow, someone with firm pre existing views

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Speaker 1: on alien visitations, raises doubts about the program's objectivity. So

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Speaker 1: are we alone in the universe or not? Humanity doesn't

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Speaker 1: have nearly enough data to answer that question. All we

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Speaker 1: can do right now is keep our minds sharp and

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Speaker 1: our eyes skyward. Today's episode was written by Mark Mancheni

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Speaker 1: and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this and

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Speaker 1: lots of other mysterious topics, visit our home planet, how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. M