By Paul Seaburn | Mysterious Universe
There was a time when the Senate majority leader spent more time behind the scenes than in front of the camera… a time when the majority leader was just as concerned about unexplained mysteries as explaining the obvious. That majority leader was former Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who became known after leaving office as a politician so concerned about UFOs that he formed a secret study to investigate them – a study that became the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), then the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and today the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force, which is in the news because it has promised a report to Congress in June on what our government knows about UFOs. That’s why Harry Reid is in the news again, and he gave his insights and opinions recently to George Knapp at Mystery Wire. Let’s look at a few of Reid’s more interesting and revealing comments.
“He should at least have the ability saying I’ve been briefed on the subject. I have no opinion on whatever he wants to say. But yes, I think that the topic of UFOs is not going away. It’s becoming more pronounced for a lot of different reasons. So he can’t ignore the subject. Even if he wanted to.”
Reid believes President Biden, who he worked with when he was Senator Biden, needs to be well-briefed on the subject of UFOs and the contents of the report well before it comes out … assuming it does — backing out for security reasons is always a possibility.
“The federal government no longer, including people at the Pentagon, no longer criticize or harass or stop promotions of people who report these occurrences. In fact, they have done just the opposite in recent months, they now tell their pilots, (inaudible), to report these unusual circumstances. And I appreciated the honesty of the Pentagon. Because when asked, what were these things, they say we don’t know. Rather than try to say they were balloons from some kind of a weather experiment. They say we don’t know.”
Reid is impressed at how much has changed in the Pentagon’s response to UFO sightings by the public and especially by military pilots since he first got involved – referring to one of the “weather balloon” responses given after the Roswell UFO Incident that has become the jokey, sceptical response to many sightings. He thinks the improvements in recording equipment and commercial pilots using cell phones has resulted in a substantial improvement in backup evidence for these sightings.
Reid believes both China and Russia have very sophisticated drones that fly in swarms and this could explain some of the recently released Navy sightings, although he seems to dislike the term “drones” because it’s too generic and the UFOs reported are often unique. When asked what he thought would happen if materials recovered after a UFO sighting were not of Earth, he said this:
“I don’t know how the public will react. But I think as long as we understand that, we need to make sure that we are scientifically driven, that we’re going to be okay. And if it’s coming from places we don’t understand, that’s still okay. As long as we understand that there’s stuff coming from other places. I have no problem whatsoever with it.”
Reid places a high degree of confidence in science – if scientists say this is true, then he believes the public will believe it or at least better accept it. That’s a lot different than the attitude of many current Washington politicians who question science relentlessly. That includes people like Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is a champion of UFO disclosure but questions science in other areas. Let’s hope Reid is not alone in this. He’s always been very open to the mainstream press about UFOs and he closes with his reason why.
“Here in Vegas I’ll go into an elevator, someone will see me, “Are you Harry Reid?” “Yes.” “Thank you very much.” And they’ll usually say for your work on flying saucers. So people are aware that we’ve been doing things on the subject of interest to the American people. I’m going to continue doing that. And I’m not going to be repressed by people saying why the hell would you spend your time on something important? I think this is important.”
It is, Senator Reid … it certainly is.
About the Author
Paul Seaburn is the editor at Mysterious Universe and its most prolific writer. He’s written for TV shows such as “The Tonight Show”, “Politically Incorrect” and an award-winning children’s program. He’s been published in “The New York Times” and “Huffington Post” and has co-authored numerous collections of trivia, puzzles and humour. His “What in the World!” podcast is a fun look at the latest weird and paranormal news, strange sports stories and odd trivia. Paul likes to add a bit of humour to each MU post he crafts. After all, the mysterious doesn’t always have to be serious.