DIA Letter to McCain: 38 DIRD Reports Listed
The Defense Intelligence Agency sent a formal letter to Senator John McCain containing a complete inventory of thirty-eight Defense Intelligence Reference Documents. These classified reports were generated under the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program between 2007 and 2012. The disclosure fulfilled a congressional inquiry regarding the program's research output.
Background
On January 9, 2018, the Defense Intelligence Agency responded to an inquiry from Senator John McCain's office by transmitting a comprehensive list of thirty-eight Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs). These documents represented the complete research output of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which operated from 2007 through 2012 with approximately $22 million in funding. The letter specified that AATIP's purpose was to investigate foreign advanced aerospace weapon threats with future technology projections over a forty-year timeframe. This disclosure provided the first official confirmation of the specific documentation produced by the program, though it reframed the effort as conventional aerospace threat analysis rather than UFO research.