US government's secret files reveal defunct program of nuking Moon for metals

In a revelation that sounds no less than science fiction, a recently publicized US government report suggests that there once was a plan to nuke the Moon. According to a report by Vice, this plan was made under the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and it was functional between 2007 and 2012. While the idea was to tunnel a hole through the moon using nuclear explosions to obtain lightweight metals, the AATIP also focused on studying unidentified flying objects (UFOs). 

The mining concept was inspired by the idea that the center of the moon might be hiding metals that are as durable steel but over 1,00,000 times lighter. 

Secret files uncovered

The secrets files were made public after the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released over 1,600 pages of the document following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Vice, Interesting Engineering reported. The documents revealed that AATIP received funding of $10 million for the first year and it was accompanied by much other sci-fi-like projects. 

"Given the current rate of success, the continued study of these subjects will likely lead to technology advancements that in the immediate near-term will require extraordinary protection", former Senator Harry Reid, the creator of AATIP had said at the time. "The technological insight and capability gained will provide the U.S. with a distinct advantage over any foreign threats and allow the U.S. to maintain its preeminence as a world leader", he further said as per The Vice. Reid has even asserted that the results of the program would yield results "in ways not yet imagined".

Since the program also focused on studying UFO sightings, Reid made several such videos public after his retirement from Pentagon in 2017. 

Other insane defunct projects 

If the idea of nuking the Moon of metal mining sounds insane, other projects are likely to surpass it. The US government had also funded projects to develop technologies such as transversable wormholes and invisibility cloaks. Although all of these projects are now defunct, a number of Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs) were prepared to discuss their viability. According to a Science Alert report, the DIRDs rejected the cloak concept saying that the "perfect cloaking devices are impossible because they require materials where the speed of light approaches infinity".