On December 16, 2017, news of this obscure program was first announced by the NY Times<\/a> and Politico<\/a>. Both media outlets reported that UFOs-\u00a0 now being referred to as \u201cUnidentified Aerial Phenomena\u201d or UAPs to reduce the stigma surrounding the topic – were the direct focus of this program. However, the Pentagon now seems to have changed their stance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Claiming they want to correct the record and clear up some inaccuracies, the Pentagon now says AATIP was <\/span>not<\/i><\/b> a UFO or UAP program. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNeither AATIP nor AAWSAP were UAP related,\u201d said Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough in an e-mail to The Black Vault<\/em>. \u201cThe purpose of AATIP was to investigate foreign advanced aerospace weapons system applications with future technology projections over the next 40 years, and to create a center of expertise on advanced aerospace technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n Since 2017, details have been scarce. However, the DoD\u2019s latest position that AATIP wasn\u2019t a UFO program, seems to represent one of their most dramatic about-faces on the issue since the program was first revealed.<\/span><\/p>\n The \u201cAAWSAP\u201d Gough refers to is the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program; a contract posted publicly by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) asking for bids<\/a> from the private sector on August 18, 2008.\u00a0 By the due date of September 5, only one bidder had submitted a proposal, and that was Bigelow Aerospace\u2019s subsidiary known as Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies or BAASS. They were awarded the contract, and according to the NY Times, operated with a $22 million budget. (Note: The Black Vault has not been able to independently verify that budget amount.)<\/p>\n Many researchers, bloggers and journalists within the mainstream media have often confused AATIP and AAWSAP along with the missions of both programs. For example, an anonymous letter<\/a> by someone claiming to be involved in the project was published by KLAS-TV, and it alleged AAWSAP was studying poltergeists along with other paranormal activity.\u00a0 Another example is a blogger<\/a> attempting to create a cohesive timeline of the programs, but often confuses dates, facts and figures that have already been established and documented.\u00a0According to the latest from The Pentagon, none of that is the case as, <\/span>\u201c[AATIP] was the name of the overall program. [AAWSAP] was the name of the contract that DIA awarded for the production of technical reports under AATIP.\u201d<\/p>\n The titles of those \u201ctechnical reports\u201d referenced by the Pentagon were released<\/a> via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to The Black Vault on January 16, 2019; which consisted of a list of thirty-eight documents created under the AATIP program. Mysteriously absent from the topics covered by the Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs)<\/a> was anything directly referencing UFOs or UAPs.<\/span><\/p>\n Topics did include some wildly speculative science, ranging from warp drives to invisibility cloaking. However, there was nothing about unidentified objects flying in the sky or captured on video. Some researchers have theorized this list of research topics was simply an exploration on how UFOs may work or how an alien civilization might traverse the cosmos in order to visit Earth. Conversely, some have remained skeptical, and felt this list may be proof that AATIP (and\/or AAWSAP) had nothing to do with UFOs, and only focused on pseudoscience.<\/span><\/p>\n The skeptics appeared to be proven wrong, when on May 22, 2019, the NY Post ran the headline, \u201cThe Pentagon finally admits it investigates UFOs<\/a>.\u201d At the time this article was published, investigative journalist Steven Greenstreet with the NY Post had received word from the Pentagon through spokesperson Christopher Sherwood that AATIP, \u201c\u2026did pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Understandably, the story then went viral.<\/span><\/p>\n However, roughly seven months later, the Pentagon\u2019s stance seems to have changed. Although the statement that was given to the NY Post was accurately reported; the Pentagon now states it was not entirely fact-based.<\/span><\/p>\n When asked about the discrepancy, \u201cAt the time, Mr. Sherwood was repeating the information that had been provided by a previous spokesperson some two years earlier,\u201d said Gough. \u201cThat previous spokesperson is no longer with my organization, and I cannot comment on why that person\u2019s explanation of AATIP included that it had looked at anomalous events.\u00a0 According to all the official information I have now, when implemented, AATIP did not pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena; that was not part of the technical studies nor the reports produced by the program.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The Black Vault reached out to Greenstreet and the New York Post but they did not respond for comment.<\/p>\n The Pentagon\u2019s new stance conflicts with former Department of Defense (DOD) employee,\u00a0 Luis Elizondo. According to Elizondo he was the director of AATIP, and since coming forward in October of 2017, he\u2019s consistantly maintained AATIP <\/span>did<\/i><\/b> research UFOs \/ UAPs.\u00a0 “AATIP itself spent its entire time on UFOs,” said Elizondo in March of 2019 at the first annual Anomalous Aerospace Phenomena (AAP) conference put on by the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU). \u201cAATIP was a 100% UFO program, period. It was not looking at airplanes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In an already confusing saga,the Pentagon continues to deny<\/a> Elizondo\u2019s role and participation in the AATIP.\u00a0 According to Gough, Elizondo was, \u201cnot the director of the AATIP,\u201d and reiterated he had \u201cno assigned responsibilities<\/a>\u201d within the program.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Currently, Elizondo serves as the Director of Government Programs and Services for To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science (TTSA), a \u201cpublic benefit\u201d corporation led by rock star Tom DeLonge, and stars in a History channel series called <\/span>Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n In the past, Elizondo has addressed the hierarchy of the AATIP and AAWSAP programs. \u201cIt would be disingenuous for me to simply say, well, AATIP is really AAWSAP. Well, it evolved from AAWSAP but it is not AAWSAP,\u201d Elizondo said during an annual Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) conference in July of 2018. \u201cAnd I think the documentation that is beginning to come out into the public forum, people are beginning to realize that,\u201dElizondo told the crowd of UFO enthusiasts.<\/span><\/p>\n Elizondo did not return a request for comment from <\/span>The Black Vault<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Although the Pentagon\u2019s change to a previous statement may concern and frustrate a segment of the general public excited about recent UFO developments; hope is not entirely lost. The Pentagon maintains, <\/span>as of the writing of this article,<\/span><\/i> that the U.S. Navy continues to investigate UAPs, and the three videos that have surfaced in the past two years that have garnered worldwide attention, are still considered UAPs. So the Pentagon hasn\u2019t tried to change or close the door on the whole UFO topic, something should still encourage enthusiasts of the UFO subject.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By John Greenewald, Jr. \u2013 The Black Vault \u2013 Originally Published December 6, 2019 The Pentagon has recently opened up to The Black Vault about the rumored \u201csecret UFO Program,\u201d known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program or AATIP.\u00a0 On December 16, 2017, news of this obscure program was first announced by the NY<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11459,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","transcript_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8637","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/12-6-2019-7-25-24-AM-297x300.png\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/12-6-2019-9-00-58-AM-218x300.png\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/12-6-2019-7-31-08-AM.jpg\")