我們是宇宙中的獨行者嗎？據《紐約時報》（New York Times）報道，美國政府官員在本月首次承認，國防部（U.S. Defense Department）之前一直試圖找出這個問題的答案。

國防部在每年6,000億美元的預算之中，隱秘地撥款了2,200萬美元用于開展高級航空威脅辨識計劃（Advanced Aviation Thread Identification Program）。該計劃旨在調查“異常飛行器”，通俗地說就是不明飛行物（UFO）。

項目的前主管是名為路易斯·埃利松多的軍事情報官員，他在今年10月辭職，并公布了之前戰斗機飛行員目擊不明飛行物的機密視頻。

一位飛行員表示：“有一整隊不明飛行物。”

這段視頻由駕駛艙的相機拍攝，其中顯示了一個高速飛行并旋轉的發光物體，背景中還有努力搞清自己究竟看到了什么的美國海軍飛行員的聲音。

該項目誕生于2007年，并與2012年正式終止，不過知情官員接受《華盛頓郵報》（Washington Post）采訪時表示，他們直到上個月還在搜集數據。

前參議院多數黨領袖哈利·里德（內華達州民主黨）是為項目籌集資金的主要負責人。

里德與已故的議員泰德·史蒂芬（阿拉斯加州共和黨）和已故的議員丹尼爾·K·艾努耶（夏威夷州民主黨）合作推動了此項目。他回憶道，曾在二戰時擔任空軍飛行員的史蒂芬迫切希望展開調查，服役人員往往不愿向上級主動報告這類目擊事件，他們害怕被嘲笑或批評。

里德表示：“泰德·史蒂芬說：‘我在空軍服役時就期待去做這件事了。’”他補充道，史蒂芬在開會時曾說自己被不明來頭的奇怪飛行器尾隨了數英里。

大部分資金都流向了Bigelow Aerospace，這家公司由里德的好友、億萬富翁羅伯特·畢格羅經營。畢格羅目前正與美國國家航空和宇宙航行局（NASA）合作，研發和生產人類太空旅行所需的可擴展太空船。他在哥倫比亞廣播公司（CBS）《60分鐘》（60 Minutes）欄目中表示，他“完全相信”外星生命確實存在，外星人已經造訪過地球。

這個國防部項目在2009年的發現，促使里德要求特別指派，并提高項目的安全級。

在當時給國防部副部長威廉姆·林三世的信中，里德表示：“我們取得了很大進展，確認了幾種非常敏感、不同尋常的航空發現。”不過，《時代》（Times）雜志報道稱，他的要求被駁回了。

埃利松多說，內部的懷疑態度導致在五角大樓里很難開展調查。

他表示：“我很榮幸為國防部服務，并承擔了嚴肅探索無法解釋的空中現象的任務。然而，最后，我無法繼續下去了，因為國防部無法提供調查日益增多的證據所需的足夠資源——可以理解，他們的戰線拉得太長了。”

在接受《時代》The Daily播客采訪時，他表示這些視頻只是國防部收集的記錄所謂UFO活動的很小一部分證據。（財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正

Are we alone in the universe? Government officials confirmed for the first time this month that the U.S. Defense Department has been trying to answer that question, according to the New York Times.

Out of the defense department’s $600 billion budget, a very well-hidden $22 million went to the Advanced Aviation Thread Identification Program, an initiative that investigates reports of “anomalous aerial vehicles,” more colloquially known as UFOs.

The former director of the program, a military intelligence official named Luis Elizondo, resigned in October and shared previously classified videos of fighter jet pilots sighting UFOs.

“There’s a whole fleet of them,” one pilot says.

The video, taken from the cockpit camera, shows a glowing object traveling at high speeds while rotating and includes audio of Navy pilots struggling to process what they are seeing.

The program was created in 2007 and officially ended in 2012, but officials familiar with the initiative told the Washington Post that collection efforts were ongoing as recently as last month.

Former Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was largely responsible for securing funding for the program.

He worked with the late Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and the late Senator Daniel K. Inuye (D-HI) on the project and recalled that Stevens, who served as a pilot in the Army’s air force during World War II, was eager to investigate claims that service members were often hesitant to report sightings to their superiors due to fear of being laughed at or stigmatized.

“Ted Stevens said, ‘I’ve been waiting to do this since I was in the Air Force,” Reid said, adding that during the meeting Stevens recounted being tailed for miles by a strange aircraft with no known origin.

Most of the money went to Bigelow Aerospace, a company run by billionaire entrepreneur and friend of Sen. Reid, Robert Bigelow. Bigelow is currently working with NASA to develop and produce expandable crafts for human space travel. He said in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview that he “absolutely convinced” that alien life is real and that extraterrestrials have visited Earth.

The defense department program made discoveries in 2009 that prompted Sen. Reid to request a special designation and heightened security for it.

“Much progress has been made with the identification of several highly sensitive, unconventional aerospace-related findings,” Sen. Reid said in a letter to William Lynn III, a deputy defense secretary at the time. His request was denied, the Times reported.

Elizondo said that internal skepticism made it difficult for the investigations to take place within the Pentagon.

“I was honored to serve at the DoD and took my mission of exploring unexplained aerial phenomena quite seriously,” he said. “In the end, however, I couldn’t carry out that mission, because the department — which was understandably overstretched — couldn’t give it the resources that the mounting evidence deserved.”

In an interview on the Times “The Daily” podcast, he said that these videos are just a small sampling of the evidence the Defense Department has collected while documenting alleged UFO activity.