MYSTERY WIRE — Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would like to see a permanent and funded UFO/UAP research program housed at NASA.
“I think that NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, should be heavily involved in this,” Reid told George Knapp during a recent interview. “And it doesn’t have to be the Pentagon.”
Just last week, NASA administrator, former Senator, and former astronaut Bill Nelson said, “When I came into NASA, I tasked our scientists to look at this phenomenon from a scientific point of view. And let’s see if we come up with any answers.”
The Pentagon has also begun the process of making the UAP Task Force a permanent and funded office. In a directive signed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, the Pentagon will “direct the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security to develop a plan to formalize the mission currently performed by the UAPTF.”
Sen. Reid also praised the pilots who have come forward to tell their encounter stories saying the old stigma of UFOs is slowly going away. “The pilots were afraid to report these things, because (it would) hurt their promotions,” Sen. Reid said. “And now the all the branches of the military have said, We want our pilots, our seamen, to report everything they see.”
Below, you can read the transcript of the interview between Sen. Harry Reid and George Knapp.
George Knapp
Senator, so, it’s finally out, an underwhelming nine pages, at least the public version of the report. What’s your initial impressions?
Sen. Harry Reid
Well, the government has acknowledged that they don’t know what these unidentified flying objects are. And so when I started talking about this years ago, people made fun of me and even my own staff thought I was crazy for talking about it. But in hindsight, I’m glad I did. Certainly, we now know that there have been, they have 142 sightings, we know they’ve been more than that. And we all acknowledge, they acknowledge that the crafts, whatever you want to call them, are unbelievably technologically something we don’t understand. They leave no vapor trail, there is no light. And they go very, very fast very quickly. And under the present technology that we have, if a human being were in one of these vehicles we couldn’t withstand the G forces. So I’m glad it’s acknowledged. But it’s something that, as far as I’m concerned, this is a preliminary report. And I mean, preliminary. There needs to be a tremendous amount of government resources put into this. So we better understand disorder. So it’s not some kind of a fringe part of what government’s doing, they’ve got to dive into this because we and the American people are entitled to know what the hell’s going on.
George Knapp
It does seem to make the case that look, we’re not we’re going to underplay this a little bit and be frank with you that we really don’t know. I mean, they don’t rule out a whole lot. They say about American technology … Basically they leave that option open, but they said we checked around. As far as we know, it’s not ours. It’s not ours, is it?
Sen. Harry Reid
No, I think that we have a good understanding that these vehicles are not something coming from China, from Russia, from France, it’s something that we don’t understand. And it’s very important we stop playing around with it and take a look at. You know I got $22 million to prove that this wasn’t a figment of someone’s imagination, I was very curious as to whether the reports of 10 of these 20 of these, but when we put this thing out to bid, and the work was done on it, we found that was scores and scores, hundreds of sightings of these. And that sightings are unalterable, they are convincing. And we’re way behind times. We’ve got to continue to move. And I am so glad that I got to start.
George Knapp
You know, they had two staffers write this report. It’s a daunting task. You get six months to write a report about a 74 year old mystery. You do it part time. I think they deserve a pat on the back for getting this together in that much time. But clearly, there is a heck of a lot of work still to be done. They need to devote some real resources to it.
Sen. Harry Reid
We need to have the resources that are scientifically based. We need, rather than some bureaucrats trying to piece together information they pick up or press other places, we need to have scientific minds take a look at this. And write scientifically not based on the latest report out some newspaper around the country around the world.
George Knapp
There are some really interesting little tidbits hidden in this nine page report. One of them mentions that there were 18 incidents where our US warplanes had near misses with these things. That would be a reason by itself to get studied and investigated further.
Sen. Harry Reid
Absolutely true. And you know, we have situations now where it’s more than just the naked eye, that ship, the Omaha is out there. And people said they saw something. Well, a lot of people discounted that till they looked at their sonar, their radar, and other ways of capturing pictures. And they certainly determined that it was something out there, wasn’t some imagination of some seamen.
George Knapp
And of course, it only looked from 2004 to 2021. All the big long history of incidents around the world and in our country. That’s not part of this. They just didn’t have the resources to dig into it.
Sen. Harry Reid
George, we have documented, it’s been documented that going back 70 years (there) have been valid occurrences that have been reported. And we didn’t have time, I guess they didn’t have the money or resources to go back and look that far. But we know that at least 70 years ago, there have been reports of this.
George Knapp
You know, the other thing, one other thing that jumped out at me is they mentioned specifically for pilots, the stigma associated with this, that it is a real problem and getting pilots to report this, because they’ve been told for so long, it’s crazy. It’s not going to do your career any favors, if you’re going to report a countering something.
Sen. Harry Reid
And I hand it to the Pentagon, the pilots were afraid to report these things, because (it would) hurt their promotions. And now the all branch military, excuse me, all the branches of the military have said, We want our pilots, our seamen, to report everything they see, I hand it to depending on that it’s headed in the right direction.
George Knapp
One of the other problems that they sort of acknowledged, they give a little gentle poke in the ribs to the Air Force, which has been remarkably silent for the last three years since this came spilling out about the program that you sponsored. The Air Force has said pretty much nothing. They acknowledge that in 2020, the Air Force finally agreed to set up a mechanism where they can do better reporting on it. We look forward to seeing that, wouldn’t you?
Sen. Harry Reid
Yes, I think that the Air Force, because these things are in the air, certainly have a responsibility to not only their own military, but also to the country. They are the ones that should be looking around up in the air. What these things are.
George Knapp
Of course, there’s no mention of space, aliens, ETs, interdimensionales, any of those more exotic possibilities seems to be that is smart on their part to not get into conspiracy theories, crazy stuff, because you want to be serious, you want to have Congress be willing to support it.
Sen. Harry Reid
It is very important that we keep this scientifically driven. And I repeat, I think it’s so important that we look back at what we’ve been able to establish. And we’ve established that these, whatever they are, exist. And they’ve been found in many different ways. And we now have reporting being done more scientifically, rather than just…
George Knapp
Haphazard?
Sen. Harry Reid
The military has done a good job. And recently, in the last couple years, and telling their pilots to report these. In the past, they had told them to ignore them.
George Knapp
We had learned that there is a second report, the larger report, 10 times the size of this report that went to Congress, that’s classified, it’s not going to be released. And I understand why, the sensor information is classified for a really good reason. But it should be great to be a fly on the wall and find out what’s in that report.
Sen. Harry Reid
And I think that we must note and continue to note and advocate for the fact that this should be ongoing. This shouldn’t be a one only and it’s over with. We need to continue working on this. And because this one cursory report is not enough. The American people, the American people are interested. This is not some figment of someone’s imagination. It’s something that’s really going on. We have reports from virtually every place, and we need to make sure we are doing something to follow up on it.
George Knapp
Do you have an idea about a program, what a permanent program could look like and where it belongs? If it is only in the military? There’s a big segment of the population that’s not going to trust them to be transparent. Where could that be housed?
Sen. Harry Reid
I think that NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, should be heavily involved in this. And it doesn’t have to be the Pentagon. I think NASA could do a good job of helping with this.
George Knapp
Would you support the idea of some sort of a public involvement, meetings, citizen organizations, something like BAASS that you helped fund before?
Sen. Harry Reid
Well, citizens are going to be involved. You can’t stop it. This is something that people are really interested in. You know, I’ve been involved in a lot of stuff in my government service, but I can go here on the Strip, go on an elevator, and somebody will say you Harry Reid, I said yes. And they will say to me, nine times out of 10 Thanks for doing work. They’ll say on flying saucers normally, but I get the point. People are really interested in this. And as I’ve said, I had a lot of time in government. And all my staff and others told me to stay away from this. And in spite of that, I went ahead and did it. And I’m glad I did. Because I think it’s something that’s extremely important to the future of not only America but the world.
George Knapp
One last question. You know, I think UFO investigators, the UFO public is going to be disappointed, that they’ve been waiting for something that ends up being nine pages. But to me, this is a huge step forward for our military to take it on, for Congress to admit that this is a legitimate mystery, and we need to solve it, and to suggest that we need an ongoing study. That’s a big day for this topic, for this subject.
Sen. Harry Reid
Even though people are disappointed in how little they got, they should be very happy that this is a program that’s gotten started. And people like me are talking about making sure it’s continued.
George Knapp
Senator, thank you very much.