AATIP and the 2017 Disclosure

On December 16, 2017, The New York Times reported the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). The story, accompanied by two authenticated Navy gun-camera videos (FLIR1 and GIMBAL), marked the first acknowledgment by the U.S. government in nearly fifty years that it was studying the subject. The $22 million Department of Defense appropriation that ran inside the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2007 to 2012 in fact funded AAWSAP (the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, administered through BAASS/Bigelow Aerospace); AATIP itself was a related but distinct, less formally budgeted effort that Luis Elizondo ran within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense. The 2024 AARO Historical Record Report distinguishes the two programs explicitly.