How the Government Keeps Its UFO Information Secret

Article by Jazz Shaw                      February 15, 2020                        (hotair.com)

• In December 2017, the New York Times broke the story about a secret Pentagon program investigating UFOs called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). Since then the Pentagon has remained secretive about the program.  It has even denied that Luis Elizondo ever worked on the program, much less ran it for years. The DoD’s information keeps getting contradicted and the Pentagon can’t seem to get their story straight.

• Investigative journalist and retired Police Lieutenant Tim McMillan has been digging into the truth behind the conflicting information we’ve been getting from the Pentagon. It turns out that the Pentagon thwarted efforts by journalists using FOIA requests to get more information on AATIP by “shopping” them out to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) and other private operations. You may recall that BAASS received the lion’s share of the government funding when the AATIP program was created at the request of former Senator Harry Reid. Therefore, they aren’t technically “government documents” and not subject to FOIA requests. McMillan quotes sources who actually worked on the project, describing the situation as “a dizzying shell game that’s entirely consistent with how black budget intelligence programs are run.” (see Jazz Shaw’s interview of Tim McMillan below) 

• BAASS would provide the AATIP and the DIA with technical reports on exotic and potential “game-changing” aerospace technology through their research of UFOs. But the reports themselves remained the commercial property of BAASS, and the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 prohibits the disclosure of proprietary materials provided to the government in confidence. Essentially, the DIA’s UFO program was set up to circumvent FOIA requests and avoid having to discuss UFOs publicly.

• McMillan was able to obtain some of those AATIP documents from the government and from the now-defunct Bigelow Aerospace to learn that not only was AATIP real, but the program absolutely focused on UFOs. Also, McMillan has the documents to prove that the Pentagon’s AATIP program still exists under a restructured program, even though the government claimed that it ended the program in 2012. It certainly was in operation in 2017 when Elizondo left the program, and it is still in operation today.

• Popular Mechanics learned that in October 2019, staffers with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Armed Service Committee were briefed on current UAP/UFO activities with former BAASS contractors and current AATIP leaders in attendance. During a closed session with the Senate Intelligence Committee, Brigadier General Richard Stapp, Director of the DoD Special Access Program Central Office, reportedly said that these highly advanced UFOs do not belong to a secret military project. This indicates that the US military does not have that kind of advanced technology. And it is likely that China and Russia do not have this technology either. So the extraterrestrial explanation is still in play.

In the more than two years since the New York Times broke their bombshell story about a secret Pentagon program investigating UFOs (or UAPs, if you insist), many questions have been raised by those investigating the topic. Unfortunately, the Pentagon has had very little to say, and even when they do offer to answer some questions, those answers frequently have a rather short shelf life. In the past, we’ve explored why there is still so much secrecy surrounding the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and how the Pentagon can’t seem to keep their stories straight. This is particularly true when it comes to their statements about Luis Elizondo, executive of To The Stars Academy and the former Defense Department official who ran AATIP for several years. (The Pentagon keeps insisting he never did, though Elizondo has his own theories as to why they’re doing this.)

Now, at long last, at least some of those mysteries have been solved. Yesterday another bombshell in this

saga dropped at Popular Mechanics. Investigative journalist Lt. Tim McMillan (ret) has been digging into the truth behind the conflicting information we’ve been getting for months and now he’s published a lengthy and incredibly well researched and documented article that peeks behind the curtains and shines some light on the subject. (If you’ve never watched my interview with McMillan, you might want to. He’s a fascinating person in his own right and well versed in the lore of ufology.)

This article provides most of the history of AATIP, some of which we already knew, but with some shocking new information that Tim uncovered through scores of interviews and by obtaining many documents from both the government and the now-defunct Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS). BAASS, as you may recall, received the lion’s share of the government funding when the AATIP program was created at the request of former Senator Harry Reid. The first thing

McMillan clears up beyond a shadow of a doubt is that not only was AATIP real, but it was also absolutely a program focused on UFOs. (You may recall that after initially admitting it was a UAP program, the Pentagon turned around and said it wasn’t.)
So how is the Pentagon keeping everything secret and thwarting efforts by journalists using FOIA requests to get more information on AATIP? McMillan quotes sources who actually worked on the project, describing the situation as “a dizzying shell game that’s entirely consistent with how black budget intelligence programs are run.” The trick being used involves the fact that the documents many of us have been seeking were all shopped out to BAASS and other private operations, so they aren’t technically “government documents” and not subject to FOIA requests. (Emphasis added)

According to several former AATIP contractors, the “product” being produced for the DIA was technical reports on exotic and potential “game-changing” aerospace technologies, and the manner of determining what areas these radical airborne breakthroughs might emerge was through the research of UFOs.

42:55 minute Jazz Shaw interview of Tim McMillan on govt secrecy (‘Townhall Media’ YouTube)

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