Declassified Memos Show Pentagon Rejected Senator Reid's Req

Declassified Memos Show Pentagon Rejected Senator Reid's Request to Classify AATIP Program

In 2009, Senator Harry Reid asked the Pentagon to place the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program under special access protection, citing 'highly sensitive, unconventional aerospace-related findings.' But DIA concluded the program's first-year reports—covering topics like antigravity and wormholes—were unclassified academic research that did not warrant such secrecy.

Published

September 6, 2026

Declassified

Date not listed

Source agency

The Black Vault (FOIA archive)

aatipfoiadeclassifiedmemosshowpentagonrejectedsenator

Pentagon Rejects Senator Reid's Special Access Request

In June 2009, Reid formally petitioned the Department of Defense to shield the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program—known internally as the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Application Program—under the highest echelons of classified access. The request, delivered to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn, sought a Restricted Special Access Program with a tightly controlled Bigoted Access List, arguing that the program's unconventional aerospace findings demanded extraordinary protection. Yet by November 2009, the Pentagon's own intelligence leadership had reached the opposite conclusion.

A declassified packet of memoranda and talking points reveals that the Defense Intelligence Agency, after reviewing the program's first-year deliverables, found no justification for such safeguards, and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence James Clapper formally recommended against establishing a Special Access Program at that time. The episode underscores a fundamental tension between political advocacy for heightened secrecy and the intelligence community's assessment of actual risk. While Reid's letter…

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Based on the official release at https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/the-advanced-aerospace-weapon-system-applications-program-aawsap-documentation/

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