In a 2017 interview on CBS's 60 Minutes, Robert Bigelow — founder of Bigelow Aerospace and recipient of the $22 million AAWSAP contract from the DIA — stated he was 'absolutely convinced' that aliens exist and that UFOs have visited Earth. Bigelow spent an estimated $200 million of his own fortune on UAP and paranormal research, including purchasing Skinwalker Ranch. His company BAASS (Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies) produced a 494-page report on worldwide UFO sightings for the DIA. Bigelow has stated he has been visited by aliens himself and that the government possesses recovered non-human materials. His facilities in Las Vegas were reportedly designated for potential storage and study of UAP materials.
“I am absolutely convinced. That's all there is to it. There has been and is an existing presence, an ET presence. And I spent millions and millions and millions — probably more than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject.”
What they said vs. what the evidence shows
“Mr. Bigelow's personal conviction, however earnest, does not constitute scientific evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which has not been produced.”
— Scientific establishment · Jun 2017
SourceFrom “crazy” to confirmed
The Claim Is Made
This is the moment they called it crazy.
Robert Bigelow doesn't fit the profile of a typical UFO believer. The aerospace billionaire built his fortune on practical engineering—developing expandable spacecraft modules for NASA and commercial space ventures. Yet in May 2017, he sat across from 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan and made a claim that would have seemed laughable coming from almost anyone else: he was "absolutely convinced" that aliens exist and have visited Earth.
What made Bigelow's statement noteworthy wasn't just his certainty, but his credentials and access to classified information. As founder of Bigelow Aerospace and principal investigator for the Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Applications Program (AAWSAP), he had received a $22 million contract from the Defense Intelligence Agency to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena. This wasn't fringe speculation—it was a government-funded research initiative that operated from 2007 to 2012.
The official response from skeptics and government officials was predictable: dismiss Bigelow as eccentric, suggest his billion-dollar fortune had led him astray, or simply ignore the claims as anecdotal. Few mainstream outlets gave serious coverage to his statements. The prevailing institutional narrative remained that UFO sightings had mundane explanations and that serious scientists shouldn't waste time on such matters.
But the evidence supporting Bigelow's conviction has only accumulated since that 2017 interview. His company, Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS), produced a comprehensive 494-page report on worldwide UFO sightings for the DIA—a document that took the phenomenon seriously through rigorous data collection and analysis. Bigelow spent an estimated $200 million of his own money on UAP and paranormal research, including purchasing Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, one of the most documented sites of alleged anomalous phenomena in the country.
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r/UFOs — Former NASA scientist independently corroborates detection of transient artificial objects in orbit. New peer-reviewed evidence supporting claims of unknown aerial objects and potential extraterrestri
Former NASA scientist independently corroborates detection of transient artificial objects in orbit. New peer-reviewed evidence supporting claims of unknown aerial objects and potential extraterrestrial/artificial presence.
More significantly, Bigelow's claims about government possession of recovered materials gained indirect credibility when Luis Elizondo, former director of the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, began making similar statements to journalists and Congress. Elizondo corroborated that the government had indeed recovered materials of unknown origin. Bigelow's Las Vegas facilities were reportedly designed to potentially store and analyze such materials, suggesting the infrastructure existed for exactly this purpose.
What Bigelow claimed in that 60 Minutes interview—that the government possessed knowledge of non-human technological presence on Earth—has evolved from isolated eccentricity to a position held by credible military and intelligence officials willing to testify before Congress.
This case matters because it exposes how institutional skepticism can function as its own form of censorship. When a credible, successful businessman with access to classified information makes extraordinary claims, the burden shouldn't rest entirely on him to prove them. Instead, the institutions supposedly investigating these questions should answer why such an accomplished figure would spend $200 million pursuing phantom research, or why his government-funded work produced thousands of pages of documentation if the phenomenon wasn't worth serious study.
The real question isn't whether Bigelow was right about aliens. It's why it took nearly five years, congressional pressure, and multiple corroborating witnesses for anyone to take seriously what a man with direct access to classified UAP research was telling us all along.
Beat the odds
This had a 1.8% chance of leaking — someone talked anyway.
Conspirators
~500Large op
Secret kept
8.9 years
Time to 95% exposure
500+ years
