A very UFO Christmas

Just when we all thought all genuine UFO research had been made redundant by the plague of floating fire lanterns, flares, rocket launches/re-entries, meteors and (now especially) cheap LED drones which have probably been behind 99% or more of claimed sightings over the last 20 years, the New York Times reports that the Pentagon says it funded new research into them from 2007 to 2012.

The big catch:  it seems it was mainly a subcontract with Robert Bigelow, who came to the project already with complete belief that we have alien visitors.   As someone in comments to the story says:

A billionaire with a secret govt. contract does not help the credibility of this program

And it's true, part of what they were doing is what I've long considered the least credible line of UFO research, as it has followed dead ends so many times I didn't think anyone took it seriously:

Under Mr. Bigelow’s direction, the company modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena.

Also, Harold Puthoff got involved.  I really don't think it helps Bigelow to be taken seriously when he gets on board the guy who had convinced himself Uri Gellar was psychic.  (Mind you, I still find some things reported about early Gellar puzzling.) 

And yet - some of the details in the story are still surprising.   First - why don't I remember the video in the article showing something with clear edges (although with an apparent glow around it) rotating and puzzling the military pilots?

Secondly, what about this?:

By 2009, Mr. Reid decided that the program had made such extraordinary discoveries that he argued for heightened security to protect it. “Much progress has been made with the identification of several highly sensitive, unconventional aerospace-related findings,” Mr. Reid said in a letter to William Lynn III, a deputy defense secretary at the time, requesting that it be designated a “restricted special access program” limited to a few listed officials.

A 2009 Pentagon briefing summary of the program prepared by its director at the time asserted that “what was considered science fiction is now science fact,” and that the United States was incapable of defending itself against some of the technologies discovered. Mr. Reid’s request for the special designation was denied.

But the ending doesn't all that inspiring.  The one guy in the Pentagon who used to look after such research (I hope his office looked like Mulder's in X Filers) has resigned, but it now talking up a commercial venture:

Mr. Elizondo has now joined Mr. Puthoff and another former Defense Department official, Christopher K. Mellon, who was a deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, in a new commercial venture called To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science. They are speaking publicly about their efforts as their venture aims to raise money for research into U.F.O.s.  In the interview, Mr. Elizondo said he and his government colleagues had determined that the phenomena they had studied did not seem to originate from any country. “That fact is not something any government or institution should classify in order to keep secret from the people,” he said.

I find this all rather puzzling.   If some modern military video/radar cases are truly inexplicable, why wouldn't the top end of the Pentagon and government admit it?   God knows, if Trump had been told UFOs were real, we would have heard about it on his Twitter feed by now.  Maybe childish hints along the lines "I've just been told the biggest secret ever by someone - I can't say who, but he wore a uniform - and it's huge.  Really huge."  

Is it a case that if something is inexplicable, someone just files it away as "interesting" and it doesn't really get followed up?  And Presidents who ask are told "we don't think it's anything to worry about, Mr President"?