So just how hard did Harry Reid get hit?

A new report reveals that the former Senate Majority Leader led the way in 2007 to secure government funding for research on Unidentified Flying Objects – UFOs.

On Saturday, Reid defended his efforts to seek out ET.

“The truth is out there. … Seriously,” the former majority leader tweeted in response to reporting Saturday that revealed the Pentagon had a set up a $22 million, multi-year program in 2007, largely by Reid’s behest, to investigate reports concerning unidentified flying objects.

Both the New York Times and Politico came out with reports about the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program on Saturday, and both Reid and the Pentagon acknowledged the program’s existence though much of it remains classified.

This is totally not an advertisement for the upcoming season of the rebooted “X-Files” series. I’m sure of it.

“I’m not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going,” Reid told the Times. “I think it’s one of the good things I did in my congressional service. I’ve done something that no one has done before.”

Ok. Given Dirty Harry Reid’s record, I will concede that this was probably one of his better moves, by comparison.

Former military intelligence official Luis Elizondo oversaw the program. He claims the funding for the program ended in 2012. The program is kept alive and active by officials with the CIA and Navy, however.

The reports revealed no confirmed sightings of alien space ships, but the they described how the program produced documents describing UFO sightings, including by Navy pilots, of aircraft that appeared to defy physics.

Raise your hand if you’re fighting the urge to craft mountains out of your mashed potatoes, right now, or maybe you just said, in a funny voice, “ET… phone home!”

Somebody got those references.

If anyone says they have the answers, they’re fooling themselves.

We don’t know the answers but we have plenty of evidence to support asking the questions. This is about science and national security. If America doesn’t take the lead in answering these questions, others will.

— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) December 16, 2017