Harry Reid

Harry Reid (1939-2021) was a U.S. senator from Nevada, Senate majority leader, and the political patron of the modern government UAP effort. In 2007 he arranged the funding that created the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), the Defense Intelligence Agency effort whose lineage runs to AATIP, AARO, and today's disclosure fights.

Reid rose from Searchlight, Nevada poverty to three decades in the Senate. His interest in the phenomenon was longstanding, encouraged by journalist George Knapp's Nevada reporting and by his friendship with Las Vegas aerospace billionaire Robert Bigelow.

With Senators Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye, Reid directed approximately $22 million in appropriations to a DIA program studying advanced aerospace threats. The contract went to Bigelow's BAASS, which investigated UAP cases and Skinwalker Ranch. After the program's exposure in 2017, Reid confirmed his role, saying he was not embarrassed by it. In his last years he said publicly that he believed the federal government and defense contractors might hold unanalyzed materials, telling The New Yorker in 2021 he was told Lockheed Martin had possessed crash retrievals, while carefully noting he had not seen them himself and had been denied access.

Reid's contribution is the funding chain: without AAWSAP there is no AATIP story, no 2017 New York Times revelation, and arguably no AARO. His attributed claims about contractor-held materials remain uncorroborated and are among the most cited quotes in the crash retrieval debate.

Critics called AAWSAP an earmark to a friend and donor, noting Bigelow's company won the contract. Reid acknowledged the relationship and defended the science. Skeptics treat his late-life statements as secondhand belief; advocates treat them as a dying statesman saying what he could.

Reid died in December 2021. The Las Vegas airport now bears his name, and his role in the UAP story has only grown in the historical record, including the AAWSAP-era documents surfacing through PURSUE-era releases.