UFO hunters have been watching the skies in growing numbers since the Roswell incident in 1947, when rumors spread that a crash site in New Mexico — reported to be that of a U.S. Army air balloon — was, in fact, that of an extraterrestrial aircraft (via History). Since then, various sightings have reawakened a wave of public interest in UFOs, while the presence of aerial phenomena in popular culture arguably peaking in the 1990s, when the TV show “The X Files” became a worldwide smash and brought the idea of secret government agencies investigating classified occurrences into the mainstream. And interest in UFOs has only grown in the 21st century, thanks in part to the internet acting as a meeting place for like-minded enthusiasts and for the easy sharing of information (not all of it credible).

But in recent years, discourse around UFOs has reached fever pitch, thanks to a number of convincing videos of potential UFOs encountered by the U.S. military, as well as shocking reports that have outlined just how seriously the military is taking the threat. In 2017, The New York Times published a lengthy feature article exposing the presence of a secret Pentagon initiative called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), first established in 2007, the activities of which remained widely classified. The article reported that the program was run by Luis Elizondo, a former counterintelligence special agent who had previously served in the U.S. Army in South Korea (via The Infographic Show).

The work of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program

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