the program cost at least $22 million over five years before it was shut down in 2012. according to "the new york times" and politico, which first reported this story, tens of millions of dollars for the project were pushed through by former senate majority leader, harry reid. those publications say a lot of the money for the pentagon ufo program went to a company called bigalow aerospace, run by a longtime friend of reid's, robert bigalow, a big believer in ufos. public records show bigalow contributed about $20,000 to reid and his political action committee. >> that campaign contributor got research contracts from this program that just is a bad picture. it doesn't look good for anybody. it's hard to imagine that something that came about that way and profited somebody who pushed for the program was a good use of taxpayer money. >> a pentagon spokesman, in fact, told cnn that the program was shuttered because there were, quote, other, higher-priority issues that merited funding.