UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RECORDPERSONNEL FILE
Harry Reid
Former Senate Majority Leader (1939–2021)
Harry Reid was born on December 2, 1939, in Searchlight, Nevada. A Democrat, he served as Nevada’s lieutenant governor, chaired the state’s Gaming Commission and spent two terms in the U.S. House. He represented Nevada in the Senate from 1987 to 2017 and led its Democrats for twelve years, including as Majority Leader from 2007 to 2015.
In 2007, as Majority Leader, Reid arranged funding for a Defense Intelligence Agency program to study unexplained aerial phenomena, backed by Senators Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye. First called the Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Applications Program (AAWSAP) and later known as AATIP, it received about $22 million over five years. Most of the money went to Bigelow Aerospace, owned by Reid’s friend and fellow Nevadan Robert Bigelow.
In June 2009 Reid asked the Pentagon to give the program ‘restricted special access program’ status. The Defense Department says the funding ended in 2012. The program stayed out of public view until December 16, 2017, when The New York Times and Politico revealed it. Reid told the Times he was ‘not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going.’
In a 2021 interview with The New Yorker, Reid said, ‘I was told for decades that Lockheed had some of these retrieved materials,’ and that the Pentagon would not approve his request to see them. He also told the magazine he had never seen proof of any crash remnants. The Times had earlier corrected a 2020 article that misstated his views on crash retrievals.
The program drew criticism. Politico reported that Bigelow, who has spoken openly about believing extraterrestrials visit Earth, had contributed to Reid’s re-election campaigns. A former congressional staffer told Politico that ‘we really couldn’t find anything of substance’ in the work. Reid defended it, calling it ‘one of the good things I did in my congressional service.’
Reid died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Henderson, Nevada, on December 28, 2021, aged 82. Two weeks earlier, Las Vegas’s main airport had been renamed Harry Reid International Airport. When Senator Chuck Schumer introduced the UAP Disclosure Act in 2023, he said he was carrying on the legacy of his ‘mentor and dear friend, Harry Reid.’
Harry Reid, official Senate portrait, 2009. Photo: United States Congress (cropped) · Public domain · source
