The former senator that is rumored, or in some circles credited, to have been the catalyst for AATIP/AAWSAP has returned after a hiatus due to medical issues. In the history of the UFO subject, Senator Harry Reid may have commented more openly than any other politician in history. He has done a number of interviews that bluntly speak of UFOs and their importance to the United States and the world.

It’s kind of hard to get around a senate majority leader talking about exotic technologies, technology advancements and human effects in regard to advanced aerial threats.

Not only has Harry Reid lobbied his peers and spoken about UFO encounters with the military in general, he confirmed a specific UFO encounter at a missile base in Montana to New York Magazine, while at the same time challenging the public and the media to find and read UFO reports:

Do you know things about this program that you can’t discuss publicly? “Yeah, but there’s plenty that can be discussed publicly, and I’ve tried to do that. I’m interested only in research. I’m interested in science, and in helping the American public understand what the hell is going on. You know at this stage in the reports, we have thousands of people who have seen this stuff. Not hundreds — thousands.”

“Read the reports. Read the reports. We have hundreds. Eric; two, three weeks ago, maybe a month now, up in Montana, they had another strange deal at a missile base up there. It goes on all the time.”

Now, in January 2019, Harry Reid is back. This time lobbying for a way UFO witnesses in the military can report their sightings more freely and without the threat of retaliation and damage to their careers. He spoke about it during an interview with KNPR, transcript courtesy of OmniTalk Radio Network‘s Giuliano Marinkovic.

JOE SCHOENMANN (HOST): We are talking with US Senator Harry Reid,retired two years ago but obviously still very much keeping his eye on national and local politics. Senator, relatively close to Yucca Mountain is Area 51, and as you know that’s the top secret military research base that’s become known around the world. And I only bring this up because in December of 2017 you did an interview with George Knapp talking about the program that you help to get a funding for to look into military sightings of unidentified craft. And then, after that some outstanding footage of what looked like flying saucers were released by the government. As for somebody as grounded in the nuts and bolt underpinnings of life – work, family, education – where did your interest in that come from?

HARRY REID: Just from the facts, ha ha…

JOE SCHOENMANN (HOST): Ha ha…

HARRY REID: I think it’s a something that we can’t ignore. I personally don’t know if there exists a little green men other places. I kind of doubt that, but I do believe that the information we have indicates that we should do a lot more study. That we have a hundreds and hundreds of people who seen the same thing – something in a sky, it moves a certain way. And we had situations over some of our military installations. We had sightings of ships in ocean. Air…air…you know…pilots who are…can understand certain things. And here is one reason that I was able to get the resources to…

JOE SCHOENMANN (HOST): Aha…

HARRY REID: …study this. And we did. We spent a lot of money and it was extremely important study to what is going on with some of these sightings. The two people who run the military funding in the Senate…and basically did House also, they were very powerful: Stevens from Alaska, Inouye from Hawaii. So I went to them. I said, you know there is some stuff here we need to take a look at. That was one of the easiest sells I ever had to make. Because, Stevens said: “Great. Sign me up. Because, when I was a pilot in WWII, I had an occasion to have this craft that was next to me. I tried to get rid of it. I couldn’t. I did everything I could. But it was there. I could see it with my eyes.”

JOE SCHOENMANN (HOST): Wow.

HARRY REID: He went down to talk to the people on the ground. They could see nothing. So, I think it is something we need to take a look at. We now have a… In fact, I’m going to have a call with a member of the Senate in an hour or two where we have people in the military who want to come and tell somebody what they’ve seen. We found in the past is that these pilots when they see something strange like this, they are prone not to report it for fear that their bosses will think that something is wrong with them and they don’t get a promotion so many, many times they don’t say a word to anybody about these strange things. But now, people are beginning to see, see the facts, and the facts are, they need a place to be able to report this and that’s what I will work on in a couple of hours to make sure that somebody I think is a powerful member in Congress… I want him to be able to sit down and talk to some of these pilots who have seen these things.

JOE SCHOENMANN (HOST): Is it going to be a new program or hearings?

HARRY REID: Well, that’s up to the person that I arranged meetings with. I can’t arrange that now.

JOE SCHOENMANN (HOST): Sure.

HARRY REID: …But I can arrange this because of contacts I have with members of the Congress.

JOE SCHOENMANN (HOST): Few weeks ago in this program, I did talk with George Knapp, who had interviewed you and he indicated that the government might slowly be letting out information – and I mean by slow over decades – to get the public gradually aware. Do you expect more information coming out soon?

HARRY REID: George has been great. You know, there is a movie. He is part of a movie dealing with some of these unusual occurrences so I have great confidence and faith in George. He is a good person. He has been great on this issue. And he is one of the premier television journalist we have in a state. So, in short, I think it is something we need to take a look at. I think it is good that people like George Knapp are raising America’s attention to this. But frankly, I think that federal government had done almost nothing to help us with this. As I said, we got a program going when I was in Congress, spent a lot money on that. That was a big help but no one has followed through on that.

JOE SCHOENMANN (HOST): By the way, you were the most powerful man in US Senate. If you had gone to Area 51 and said I want to take a look, would they let you?

HARRY REID: Oh sure, I have been in Area 51. I don’t know if I should say many times, but a lots, lots of times. I know Area 51 quite well. I know what they have done there. I don’t know in recent years, of course. But a, I know what went on there.

JOE SCHOENMANN (HOST): Anything…ha ha…unusual you can talk about?

HARRY REID: Well, there were some unusual stuff, of course, and some of that unusual stuff is now just accepted because they started it there and now it’s become fairly standard. But I don’t think that it would be appropriate for me to – I had the opportunity to go there, it is a classified setting – and then tell everybody well here is what I saw, and now here is what they do. But the fact is, lot of the stuff they did there is now pretty standard operating…

JOE SCHOENMANN (HOST): Ok.

HARRY REID: Proof all that at Area 51 that it could be done. And frankly, it’s a been a little bit easier now, because in the past, we had to worry about the Soviet Union and their satellites spying on us. Well, you know that’s a different situation now. We can do a lot more with our own technology so we don’t have to worry about that as we did before. In the past Soviet satellites would come around a couple times a day, and we have to be very careful doing those hours.