The documented programs — Project Blue Book (1947–1969), AATIP (~$22 million, 2008–2012, confirmed by the Pentagon in 2017), the UAP Task Force (2020), and AARO (2022–present, created by Congress).

Current spending — AARO's budget sits in the low tens of millions per year per public budget reporting — a rounding error in a ~$850 billion defense budget, and less than the cost of a single F-35.

What it buys — A standing reporting system for military personnel, sensor-data analysis, and a congressionally mandated historical review of U.S. government involvement going back to 1945.

Status — Transparency is improving: annual UAP reports to Congress are now required by law, and AARO publishes unclassified versions.

For most of a century the honest answer was “almost nothing, and quietly.” Project Blue Book ran on a skeleton staff. After it closed in 1969, official spending went dark for four decades — until 2017, when the Pentagon confirmed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program had spent roughly $22 million across five years, a story that put “UAP” on front pages.

Today the spending is small but structural, which matters more than the amount. Congress created AARO by statute, requires annual reporting, and funds a reporting pipeline that did not exist when the pilots in our case files had nowhere to file. The money buys process — and process is what turns sightings into records.

For scale: the United States spends more on military bands in a year than on UAP investigation. Whatever explains the residue of unexplained cases, a lavish government program is not it.

Sources

• Pentagon confirmation of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), December 2017

• All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) — official site and annual reports

• FY2022–FY2024 National Defense Authorization Acts — UAP reporting provisions

• Project Blue Book files — U.S. National Archives