But the main video and pilot account wasn't new when news of the existence of AAITP first broke. It had been floating around in defense circles for over a decade, but more open disclosure about the origin of the video on an official level, as well as subsequent interviews with the pilot that took it, certainly elevated it to mainstream news.
Beyond that, accounts of Bigelow's special unit's investigation include claims that mysterious material from downed objects was being stored in storage lockers and that the program went far beyond documenting and evaluating eyewitness reports of UFOs. Instead, it took a holistic approach, which may have included evaluating the impact on human biology in association with sightings and other unexplained events and even seemed to have delved into other paranormal domains.
This would seem to match up with the picture of the program's work we now have based on the documents Knapp's I-Team obtained. What we know for sure, beyond the basic facts surrounding the project and information that Elizondo, the guy who led the program on the DoD side, has given to the press, is that some very strange studies resulted from its mandate. Once again, the studies Las Vegas' Channel 8 uncovered are official DIA documents that the United States Government paid EarthTech and other Bigelow associates to produce and kept on file for its own internal use.
If nothing else, the existence of these studies supports the perception that this program went far beyond just trying to interpret and document eye-witness accounts of UFOs and trying to identify what was buzzing around in earth's atmosphere. And it is bound to leave just about anyone wondering if this is what has been released, just imagine what else exists that hasn't.
thedrive.com