IMO, the fishy part of the article is the cronyism involved in this program: "The shadowy program — parts of it remain classified — began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena. Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entreprene…
Such oddball connections are probably the only the way such a program would ever get funded.
Edit: well, obviously he didn't have the money. Misspoke. I meant the means (a company with the required infrastructure).