AAWSAP
AAWSAP (Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program) was a research program that ran from 2008 to 2012, funded by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, which studied UFO/UAP phenomena and presumed advanced aerial threats.
AAWSAP (Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program) was a research program of US military intelligence (DIA). It originated in 2007 from discussions among Senator Harry Reid, businessman Robert Bigelow and DIA analyst James Lacatski, and received congressional funding through Reid's intervention, with the support of Senators Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye. In 2008, the contract to carry out the program was won by Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS), the company of Bigelow, an old friend of Reid's; sources put the budget at around $22 million. The funding ended in 2012.
What it studied
According to the official wording, the program's goal was to analyze advanced aerial and space threats, including unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). Under its auspices, 38 studies were produced, the list of titles of which the DIA made public in 2019. Their topics ranged from tracking hypersonic vehicles to warp drive and dark energy, and many of them dealt with speculative theoretical questions. BAASS also investigated alleged paranormal phenomena at Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, which at the time was owned by Bigelow himself.
Its relationship to AATIP
The name AAWSAP is closely intertwined with the name AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program), which became known in December 2017 following articles in the New York Times and other publications; one of their main sources was Luis Elizondo, who presented himself as the program's former director. Sources contradict each other about the relationship between the two programs. According to some accounts, AATIP was a later name or continuation of AAWSAP; according to others, after 2010 the DIA saw little use in the program's results, the official work ended in 2012, and Elizondo carried on the AATIP name only in an unofficial capacity.
The skeptical view
According to critics and skeptical researchers, AAWSAP operated with weak scientific oversight, and its funds also went to speculative topics that had little to do with its declared defense goals. It drew particular criticism that the program's money was used to investigate paranormal phenomena on the contracted entrepreneur's own property. Steven Aftergood, a well-known researcher of government secrecy, said that it would be hard to claim that the military or the public got their money's worth. At the same time, the program becoming public helped put the UAP topic on Congress's agenda and contributed to the Pentagon launching official UAP investigations again from 2020 onward.