AP PRESSThe 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).
The record on unidentified anomalous phenomena
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).
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.
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.
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.