Disturbing History - DH Ep:28 The UFO President: Jimmy Carter's Close Encounter

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

On a clear January evening in 1969, future president Jimmy Carter stood with twenty other men outside a Lions Club meeting in Leary, Georgia, and witnessed something that would forever change his perspective on what flies in our skies. The glowing, color-shifting object that hovered, approached, and retreated over the course of ten minutes would make Carter the first and only U.S. president to officially file a UFO report, and lead to his unprecedented campaign promise to reveal everything the government knew about UFOs if elected.This episode explores not just Carter's extraordinary sighting and his frustrated attempts at disclosure, but the entire hidden history of American presidents and their complex relationships with the UFO phenomenon. From Harry Truman's startling admission that flying saucers, if they existed, were "not constructed by any power on Earth," to the recent congressional testimonies about retrieved non-human craft, we trace seven decades of presidential encounters with the unknown.We delve into Eisenhower's alleged meeting with extraterrestrials at Edwards Air Force Base and his reported threat to invade Area 51 if the CIA didn't brief him on their activities. We examine Kennedy's mysterious memo requesting all UFO files just ten days before his assassination, and his plan to share UFO information with the Soviet Union to prevent nuclear war.The narrative reveals Nixon's supposed midnight trip to show comedian Jackie Gleason alien bodies at Homestead Air Force Base, and Reagan's obsessive references to alien threats in major speeches that his staff couldn't stop him from making.The episode exposes how the classification system's complexity made Carter's promise of full UFO disclosure impossible to keep, even for the most powerful office in the world. Through interviews, declassified documents, and insider accounts, we explore how presidents from Truman to Biden have each grappled with the same fundamental tension between the public's right to know and the imperatives of national security.We reveal how some presidents were allegedly told that UFO information existed in Special Access Programs so secret that even they, as commander-in-chief, couldn't access it without a specific operational need to know.From Gerald Ford's congressional hearings on UFOs in the 1960s to Clinton tasking his Associate Attorney General with finding out what the government knew about UFOs and being stonewalled, from Obama's cryptic jokes about aliens exercising "strict control over us" to Trump's administration overseeing the release of authenticated Navy UFO videos, this episode presents the most comprehensive examination of presidential involvement with the UFO phenomenon ever assembled.The journey from Carter's sighting in rural Georgia to today's Pentagon UAP investigations reveals how the UFO issue has evolved from ridicule to respectability, from denial to official acknowledgment, from Project Blue Book to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. Through this lens, we see not just a story about mysterious objects in our skies, but a profound examination of power and its limits, secrecy and democracy, and humanity's ongoing encounter with the unknown.This is the story of how a peanut farmer's ten-minute sighting became part of a decades-long struggle for transparency that continues today, as Congress holds hearings, NASA conducts studies, and military pilots testify about objects that seem to defy our understanding of physics. It's a reminder that some mysteries transcend even presidential power, and that the universe still holds secrets that humble the most powerful people on Earth.

Some stories were never meant to be told. Others were buried on purpose. This podcast digs them all up. Disturbing history peels back the layers of the past to uncover the strange, the sinister, and the stories that were never supposed to survive. From shadowy presidential secrets to government experiments that sound more like fiction than fact, this is history they hoped you'd forget. I'm Brian, investigator, author, and your guide through the dark corner.

of our collective memory. Each week I'll narrate some of the most chilling and little-known tales from history that will make you question everything you thought you knew. And here's the twist. Sometimes the history is disturbing to us. And sometimes, we have to disturb history itself, just to get to the truth.

If you like your facts with the side of fear, if you're not afraid to pull at threads, others leave alone. You're in the right place. History isn't just written by the victors. victors. Sometimes it's rewritten by the disturbed. The evening of January 6th, 1969, began like any other in Leary, Georgia. This small town, population barely 500, sat quietly in the southwestern corner of the state, about 10 miles from the Alabama border. The air was crisp and clear, typical for a

January evening in South Georgia, where the winters are mild and the skies often cloudless. as dusk settled over the peanut fields and pine forests that stretched for miles in every direction. Approximately 20 men gathered outside the Lions Club building, waiting for their meeting to begin. The Lions Club met regularly in this small community, bringing together local business owners, farmers, and civic leaders, the backbone of rural Georgia society. These meetings were social occasions as much as civic duties. Times when men who had known each other for decades would gather to discuss community service projects, catch up on local news, and maintain the social bonds that held small southern towns together. Among them stood a man who would, within a decade, become the most powerful person on earth.

James Earl Carter, Jr., known to everyone simply as Jimmy. Carter was 44 years old then, in the prime of his life. life, a successful peanut farmer and businessman who had recently finished his term in the Georgia State Senate. He had served from 1963 to 1967, making a name for himself as a progressive voice on education and a cautious moderate on racial issues, a delicate balance in 1960s, Georgia. Carter's presence at the Lions Club wasn't unusual. He was deeply embedded in the local community, teaching Sunday school at Plains Baptist Church, serving on the Sumter Cemetery. County School Board and participating in various civic organizations.

He was contemplating his political future that evening, though he wouldn't announce his first gubernatorial campaign until later that year. On this particular evening, however, politics was far from his mind. The men stood outside, some smoking cigarettes, others simply enjoying the cool evening air. Some accounts suggest they were waiting for late arriving members before starting the meeting. Others indicate they had stepped outside during a break in the proceedings. The exact reason they were outdoors has been lost to time, but what happened next would be burned into the memory of everyone present.

It was approximately 7.15 p.m. when someone, historical accounts differ on who noticed first, pointed to the western sky and said something like, What in the world is that? The men turned almost in unison to look where their companion was pointing. there above the tree line, roughly 30 degrees above the horizon, was something none of them could immediately identify. According to Carter's own accounts, given consistently over multiple decades, with remarkable consistency in the details, the object was unlike anything he had ever seen before. It appeared bluish at first, then shifted to reddish, maintaining a luminous quality

that made it stand out starkly against the darkening sky. It wasn't solid in the way an aircraft would appear. Instead, it seemed to have an ethereal, almost plasma-like quality. Carter would later describe it as being about the same apparent size as the moon, though he was always careful to clarify that he didn't mean it was actually as large as the moon, just that it appeared roughly the same size from where they stood. The brightness was remarkable, at times as bright as the moon itself, casting enough light that the men could see each other's faces turned upward in amazement. What made the sighting particularly unnerving was the object's behavior. It seemed to move towards them from a distance, growing larger and brighter as it approached. Then it stopped, hovering in place

for several moments. The men watched, transfixed as it moved partially away, then returned, then finally departed. This wasn't the steady traverse of a satellite or the predictable path of an aircraft. This was something that seemed to move with purpose and intelligence. The sighting lasted between 10 and 12 minutes, an eternity when you're watching something that challenges your understanding of what should be in the sky. During this time, the men discussed what they were seeing, offering various theories. Maybe it was a weather balloon, someone suggested, though weather balloons don't glow with their own light or change colors. Perhaps it was Venus, another offered. But several of the men, including Carter, were familiar with Venus and knew this wasn't it.

Carter himself brought a unique perspective to the sighting. He wasn't just a peanut farmer. He was a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, where he had studied nuclear physics and engineering. He had served as a naval officer on submarines, including time in the nuclear submarine program under Admiral Hyman Rickover, one of the most demanding and technically rigorous positions in the military. He knew how to observe, how to estimate distances and sizes,

how to maintain objectivity even when confronted with the unexpected. Years later, Carter would tell reporters, I don't laugh at people anymore when they say they've seen UFOs, because I've seen one myself. He would describe his emotional state during the sighting as one of curiosity rather than fear. I was thoroughly familiar with all types of aircraft and all types of aerial phenomena, he would say. But this was not like anything I had ever seen before. The other witnesses that night included respected memories,

members of the Leary community, bankers, farmers, store owners, men whose credibility in the community was unquestioned. Yet as the years passed, most would remain silent about what they saw. This wasn't unusual for the time. In 1969, claiming to have seen a UFO could damage your reputation, affect your business, even impact your family's social standing. The fact that Carter would later speak openly about the experience was remarkable for its courage. What makes Carter's citing particularly significant is that he took the unusual step of formally documenting it. But this wouldn't happen immediately. It wasn't until 1973, four years after the incident and while serving as governor of Georgia,

that Carter filed an official report with the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The timing is interesting. By 1973, Carter was already planning his presidential run, though it wouldn't be announced until late 1974. Filing a UFO report while preparing to run for president seems politically risky, yet Carter did it anyway. The report itself is a fascinating document. On the official form, Carter provided specific details that he maintained consistently throughout his life. He estimated the object's distance at approximately 300 to 1,000 yards,

though he acknowledged the difficulty in judging distances for aerial objects without reference points, a scientifically honest admission. He described the object's size as appearing about the same as the moon, maybe a little smaller, and noted its brightness as, at times as bright as the moon. When asked about the object's speed, Carter was careful not to exaggerate.

He didn't claim it moved at impossible speeds or performed physics-defying maneuvers. Instead, he described a deliberate controlled movement, approaching, stopping, retreating, returning. This restraint in his description actually lends credibility to his account. He wasn't trying to sensationalize. He was simply reporting what he observed. The form asked whether Carter had attempted to photograph the object.

He had not. And this detail reminds us how different 1969 was from today. No one carried cameras constantly. Photography required planning, equipment, and purpose. A group of men standing outside a Lions Club meeting would have no reason to have cameras at hand. This absence of photographic evidence would later become a point of contention for both believers and skeptics. But Carter wasn't the first president to encounter the mystery of UFOs, and understanding his experience requires placing it in the broader context of presidential

encounters with the unknown. The modern UFO era began during Harry Truman's presidency, and Truman himself set the template for how presidents would grapple with this phenomenon. a mixture of public dismissal and private concern that would characterize presidential approaches for decades. It was June 24, 1947, when Kenneth Arnold, a private pilot flying near Mount Rainier in Washington State, observed nine unusual objects moving at incredible speed. Arnold described their motion as like saucers skipping on water, and though he never used the term flying saucer himself, the press coined it from his description. Within days, flying saucer sightings were being reported across the country.

Then just two weeks later, came Roswell. On July 8, 1947, the Roswell Army Airfield issued a press release stating they had recovered a flying disc from a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Within hours, the military retracted the statement, claiming it was merely a weather balloon. But the damage was done, or perhaps the cover-up had begun, depending on your perspective. Truman found himself in an impossible position.

The Cold War was beginning. Nuclear weapons had fundamentally changed warfare, and now there were reports of unidentified objects in American airspace. Were they Soviet secret weapons, natural phenomena, or something else entirely? In public, Truman was measured but surprisingly open. At a press conference on April 4, 1950, when asked about flying saucers, Truman made a remarkable statement. I can assure you that flying saucers, given that they exist,

are not constructed by any power on Earth. Think about the implications of that statement. The President of the United States was publicly acknowledging that if these objects were real, they weren't Soviet, they weren't American, they weren't from any earthly nation. But privately, Truman was more concerned than his public statement suggested. According to his aide Robert Landry, Truman requested quarterly verbal reports on UFO sightings from the Air Force.

These briefings continued throughout his presidency. Landry later revealed that Truman was particularly interested in patterns, were the sightings concentrated near military installations, nuclear facilities, major cities. Truman also presided over the creation of Project Sign in 1948, the Air Force's first official UFO investigation. When Project Sign's initial report suggested that UFOs might be extraterrestrial in origin, Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt Vandenberg rejected it, and the report was allegedly destroyed. Project Sign was replaced by Project Grudge, which took a more skeptical approach, which in turn was replaced by Project Blue Book in 1952.

There's also the matter of the alleged Majestic 12 documents, which surfaced in the 1980s, claiming that Truman established a secret committee of scientists and military leaders to study crashed UFOs and their occupants. While most researchers consider these documents fraudulent, they've become part of UFO lore and reflect the deep suspicion that presidents know more than they reveal. Dwight Eisenhower inherited Truman's UFO problem and faced his own dramatic encounters with the phenomenon. The summer of 1952 saw one of the most significant UFO events in the United States. in American history, the Washington DC UFO incidents. Over two consecutive weekends in July, multiple unidentified objects were tracked on radar

over the nation's capital. The objects were seen by civilian pilots, military personnel, and countless citizens. Fighter jets were scrambled, but the objects would disappear when the jets approached, only to reappear after the jets left. The incidents caused near panic. The Washington Post ran the headline,

Saucer outran jet, pilot says. The Air Force was flooded with calls. Citizens demanded answers. How could unidentified objects violate the airspace over the White House and Capitol, with impunity? Eisenhower was forced to act. He authorized the CIA to convene the Robertson panel, a group of prominent scientists tasked with assessing the UFO situation. The panel met in January 1953 and concluded that while UFOs posed no direct threat to national, security. The reporting of UFOs could be exploited by enemies to cause mass hysteria and clog

intelligence channels. They recommended a policy of debunking and downplaying UFO reports, a policy that would shape government response for decades. But the most intriguing story about Eisenhower concerns an alleged meeting with extraterrestrials. According to various witnesses who came forward decades later, Eisenhower was taken to Edwards Air Force Base on February 20th, 1954, where he supposedly met with alien beings and viewed their craft. The official story is that Eisenhower was getting emergency dental treatment during his absence from a golf vacation in Palm Springs, but no dental records have ever been produced to support this claim. Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages. What we do know is that Eisenhower was deeply concerned about the

military industrial complex, gaining too much power and keeping too many secrets. In his farewell address, he warned about this explicitly. Some researchers believe this warning extended to UFO secrecy, that Eisenhower had discovered programs so classified that even he, as president, had limited access to them. There's also the testimony of Laura Eisenhower, Dwight's great-granddaughter, who has publicly stated that her great-grandfather did meet with extraterrestrials, and that this contact has been hidden from the public. While her claims are controversial and unverified,

they add to the mythology surrounding Eisenhower and UFOs. John F. Kennedy's relationship with the UFO phenomenon is perhaps the most tantalizing and tragic of any president. Kennedy was president during a time of tremendous technological advancement and Cold War tension. The space race was in full swing and the boundaries between science fiction and science fact were blurring. Kennedy's interest in UFOs appears to have been primarily strategic. He was concerned that UFO sightings could be misidentified as Soviet missiles,

potentially triggering nuclear war. This wasn't an idle concern. There had been several incidents where UFO sightings had caused military alerts. On November 12, 1963, just 10 days before his assassination, Kennedy sent a memo to CIA director John McCone requesting all files on UFOs. The memo, which was declassified decades later, shows Kennedy wanted to share information with the Soviet Union to prevent misidentification of UFOs as aggressive acts. He wrote about instituting a program of data sharing with NASA and the Soviets

on what he called unknowns. Some researchers have suggested that Kennedy's push for UFO transparency was connected to his assassination. While there's no credible evidence for this theory, It's worth noting that Kennedy had made enemies within the intelligence community with his threat to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. His desire to share UFO information with the Soviets would have been seen as naive or even treacherous by Cold War Hawks. There's also the strange case of Fred Crisman, a man connected to both the early UFO phenomenon and the Kennedy assassination. Crisman was involved in the 1947 Mori Island UFO incident,

where he claimed to have recovered debris from a damaged flying saucer. Years later, he would be subpoenaed by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison as part of his investigation into Kennedy's assassination. While the connection seems tenuous, it illustrates how UFOs intersect with other deep mysteries in American history. Lyndon Johnson, who assumed the presidency after Kennedy's assassination, had his own complex relationship with UFOs. Johnson was a pragmatist who understood that the UFO issue was politically radioactive. Publicly, he maintained silence on the subject. But privately, according to

several AIDS, he was fascinated. Johnson would regularly ask Air Force officials for updates on interesting UFO cases. He kept a file of UFO reports in his desk drawer, which he would occasionally pull out and review. According to Joseph Caliphon, one of Johnson's top aides, the president believed there was something to the phenomenon, but felt it was too risky to pursue publicly. During Johnson's presidency, there were several significant UFO incidents, including the 1964 Socorro, New Mexico siding, by police officer Lonnie Zamora, which remains one of the most credible UFO cases on record. Johnson received briefings on these incidents, but chose not to

take public action. There's also the interesting fact that Johnson's ranch and tech Texas was located in an area with frequent UFO sightings. Local residents would later claim that strange lights were often seen over the ranch, and that military vehicles would sometimes arrive in the middle of the night. Whether these stories are true or simply local folklore is impossible to determine. Richard Nixon presents perhaps the most enigmatic case of presidential UFO involvement. Nixon was deeply secretive by nature, and his relationship with UFOs reflects this. Publicly, he said little about the subject, but privately, according to several sources,

he was deeply involved. The most famous Nixon UFO story involves comedian Jackie Gleason. According to Gleason's wife, Beverly, Nixon took Jackie to Homestead Air Force Base in Florida in 1973 to show him something extraordinary. When Gleeson returned home, he was badly shaken. He told Beverly that Nixon had shown him the bodies of four alien beings that had recovered from a crashed spacecraft. Gleason, who had been obsessed with UFOs for years, was supposedly both thrilled and disturbed by what he saw. Beverly Gleason's account has

been corroborated by others who knew Jackie, including his friend Larry Warren, who said Gleason confirmed the story to him. Nixon and Gleason were indeed close friends who often gulfed together in Florida, lending some credibility to the tale. Nixon also made several cryptic comments about UFOs during his presidency. When asked about them by the press, he once said, I'm not at liberty to discuss the government's knowledge of extraterrestrial UFOs at this time. The careful wording, extraterrestrial UFOs, suggests he was making a distinction between earthly and non-earthly origins.

There's also the testimony of Robert Merritt, a former informant who claimed that Nixon showed him a letter in the White House, confirming the existence of extraterrously. terrestrial life and recovered alien technology. While Merritt's claims are unverified, they add to the pattern of stories suggesting Nixon knew more than he ever revealed publicly. Gerald Ford had the most extensive pre-presidential involvement with UFOs of any president. As a congressman from Michigan, Ford was confronted with a wave of UFO sightings in his state in March, 1966. Hundreds of people, including police officers and college students, reported seeing strange lights performing impossible maneuvers. The Air Force sent astronomer Jay Allen Heineck to investigate. Heinek, under pressure to

provide a conventional explanation, suggested that some of the sightings might have been swamp gas. Methane released from decaying vegetation. This explanation was widely ridiculed and caused public outrage. Ford, responding to his constituents' anger, called for congressional hearings. On March 25, 1966, he issued a statement saying, in the firm belief that the American public deserves a better explanation than that thus far given. By the Air Force, I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomena. I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment on this subject.

Ford's call led to congressional hearings in April 1966. where several scientists testified about UFOs. These hearings in turn led to the creation of the Condon Committee, a University of Colorado study funded by the Air Force. Ford had hoped this would bring transparency to the UFO issue, but the Condon report, released in 1969, was largely dismissive of UFOs and recommended ending project Blue Book. As president, Ford maintained interest in UFOs but took no significant public action.

He did, however, sign legislation that strengthened the Freedom of Information Act, which would later be used extensively by UFO researchers to pry documents from government agencies. Which brings us back to Jimmy Carter, whose personal sighting in 1969 would shape his approach to the UFO issue in ways no other president could match. After that evening in Leary, Carter couldn't simply dismiss UFO reports as misidentifications or hoaxes. He had seen something himself. something that his scientific training and military experience couldn't explain. When Carter entered the 1976 presidential race, he was a long shot.

The former one-term governor of Georgia was virtually unknown nationally. He needed to distinguish himself from the crowd of Democratic candidates, and his UFO experience, surprisingly, became part of that distinction. During the campaign, Carter didn't hide from his UFO siding. When asked about it, he would describe it matter-of-fact. backly, neither sensationalizing nor minimizing it. This approach resonated with voters tired of political double speak and deception. Here was a candidate willing to admit he had seen something he couldn't explain.

If he could be honest about that, perhaps he could be honest about other things too. The promise that would define Carter's relationship with the UFO issue came during a campaign stop in Appleton, Wisconsin, in March, 1976. Speaking to an audience that included several U.S. UFO researchers, Carter made a bold declaration. If I become president, I'll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists. I am convinced that UFOs exist because I have seen one. This wasn't a carefully crafted political statement vetted by consultants and focus groups.

This was Carter speaking from personal conviction. He had experienced the frustration of seeing something extraordinary and having no official explanation for it. He believed the American people deserved better. The promise electrified the UFO community. Organizations like the Mutual UFO Network, the Center for UFO Studies, and the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, saw Carter as their champion. Finally, they believed a president would reveal the truth about UFOs. But Carter's promise also resonated beyond the UFO community. This was 1976, just two years after Nixon's resignation. The Pentagon papers had revealed government lies about Vietnam. The Church Committee had exposed CIA abuses.

Americans had learned their government was capable of massive deception. Carter's promise of UFO transparency symbolized a broader commitment to open government. During the campaign, Carter would often be asked to elaborate on his siding. At a campaign event in Sacramento, a reporter pressed him for details. Carter responded, it was the darndest thing I've ever seen. It was big. It was very bright.

It changed colors. And it was about the size of the moon. We watched it for 10 minutes, but none of us could figure out what it was. One thing's for sure. I'll never make fun of people who say they've seen unidentified objects in the sky. The National Inquirer,

the supermarket tabloid that had turned UFO stories into a circulation booster, made an unprecedented move. It endorsed Carter for president, its first and only presidential endorsement. The endorsement was based partly on Carter's UFO stance and his promise of disclosure. While other candidates might have run from such an endorsement, Carter handled it gracefully, neither accepting nor rejecting it. Carter's approach to the UFO issue during the campaign was strategically brilliant. It cost him nothing among skeptics.

They might think him mistaken, but not dishonest. And it gained him credibility among the millions of Americans who had seen something unusual in the sky, or simply believed the government was hiding something. After winning the election, Carter's transition team began making inquiries about UFO information even before he took office. Jack Watson, who led the transition team, contacted various agencies requesting briefings on what UFO-related materials existed and what could be released to. the public. The responses were illuminating and frustrating. The CIA acknowledged having UFO-related

documents, but claimed most were classified for reasons having nothing to do with UFOs themselves. They revealed sources and methods, surveillance capabilities, or ongoing operations. The Air Force, despite officially ending UFO investigations with Project Blue Book in 1969, admitted to continued collection of UFO reports that intersected with air defense. concerns. NASA, which Carter had hoped might take over UFO research from the military, was reluctant. NASA administrator Robert Frosh worried about the space agency's credibility being damaged by association with UFOs. He also noted the practical challenges, unlike space exploration, which had clear goals and methods, UFO research was amorphous and potentially

endless. Once in office, Carter discovered the full complexity of the classification system. It wasn't simply a matter of declassifying UFO files. The information was scattered across dozens of agencies and programs, each with its own classification rules and concerns. A report about a UFO sighting over a missile base might also reveal the detection capabilities of that base. A document about a UFO tracked by satellite might expose the satellite's existence and capabilities. There was also the problem of special access programs. Highly classified projects that even the president might not be fully briefed on unless there was a specific need to know.

According to Daniel Sheehan, a lawyer who worked with the Carter administration on various issues, Carter was told by CIA Director George H.W. Bush that certain UFO-related materials were in programs that Carter didn't have the clearance to access. This claim, if true, is extraordinary. It suggests that the classification system had evolved to the point that, where even the president could be denied information. It implies a permanent government structure that transcends elected officials, what some would later call the deep state.

Carter also faced resistance from within his own administration. Defense Secretary Harold Brown, a physicist, believed UFO investigations were a waste of resources. National Security advisors Big Neve Berzerzzynski was focused on the Soviet threat and saw UFOs as a distraction. Even Carter's science advisor, Frank Press, was skeptical about government involvement in UFO research. Meanwhile, the UFO community was growing impatient. They had expected quick action on Carter's promise, but months passed with no dramatic revelations. Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages.

Freedom of Information Act requests were yielding some documents, but they were often heavily redacted. The big disclosure, the revelation of what the government reads, really knew about UFOs wasn't happening. By mid-1978, it was clear that Carter would not be able to fulfill his campaign promise. There was no announcement, no explanation to the UFO community that had supported him. The promise simply faded away, another casualty of the gap between campaign rhetoric and governing reality. The UFO research community felt betrayed. Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist turned UFO researcher, accused Carter of participants.

participating in a cosmic watergate. Others suggested Carter had been threatened or pressured by the military industrial complex. The more charitable interpretation was that Carter had been naive about the realities of the classification system when he made his promise. But Carter's presidency wasn't entirely without progress on the UFO issue. More UFO-related documents were released under the Freedom of Information Act during his administration than ever before. These documents, while often heavily redacted, revealed that government interest in UFOs had continued long after Project Blue Book's closure. The CIA had collected UFO reports from around the world. The Defense Intelligence Agency had analyzed UFO incidents involving military personnel.

The FBI had investigated UFO sightings near nuclear facilities. These releases raised as many questions as they answered. If UFOs were all misidentifications and hoaxes, why was the government still collecting reports? Why were intelligence agencies interested? What was being hidden behind all those redacted sections? Ronald Reagan would bring a completely different energy to the presidential UFO story. Reagan claimed to have had his own UFO siding in 1974

while flying an Assessna citation over California. According to the pilot Bill Painter, Reagan suddenly pointed out the window and said, Look at that. There was a bright white light zigzagging through the sky. Reagan told the pilot to follow it, and they did for several minutes before the object suddenly shot straight up and disappeared. Reagan would later tell the story to various people,

including Wall Street Journal Bureau Chief Norman Miller, who confirmed that Reagan had described the siding to him in detail. Reagan's wife Nancy was also on the plane and reportedly confirmed seeing the object. As President, Reagan would make numerous references to alien threats that puzzled and sometimes alarmed his staff. The most famous came in his address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 21, 1987. Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we in all nations not live in peace?

In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. This wasn't an isolated comment. Reagan made similar remarks at the Geneva Summit with Mikhail Gorbachev, at a high school in Maryland, and in several other speeches. His staff would try to remove these references, but Reagan would put them back in.

Colin Powell, then National Security Advisor, later revealed that they gave up trying to stop Reagan from talking about alien threats. Gorbachev himself would later confirm that Reagan had raised the alien scenario during their private meetings. According to Gorbachev, Reagan asked him if the Soviet Union would help the United States if Earth was attacked by aliens. Gorbachev said he told Reagan, no doubt about it. Some researchers believe Reagan's alien fixation wasn't hyperbochievous. that he had been briefed on something that convinced him, an alien presence was real. Others suggest he was using the alien threat as a metaphor for nuclear war or as a way to build common ground with the Soviets. Whatever his motivation, Reagan talked about aliens more than any

other president. Reagan also presided over the Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed Star Wars, which some UFO researchers believe was secretly aimed at defending against alien threats. rather than Soviet missiles. While there's no evidence for this theory, it illustrates how Reagan's alien comments have been interpreted by the UFO community. George H. W. Bush, despite his background as CIA director, maintained strict silence on UFOs during his presidency. When asked about UFOs during his campaign, Bush gave a cryptic response, I know some, I know a fair amount. But he never elaborated, and as president, he avoided the topic entirely. This silence is interesting given Bush's intelligence background.

As CIA director in 1976 to 77, Bush would have had access to whatever UFO-related information the agency possessed. The fact that he chose to say nothing suggests either there was nothing significant to say, or that what he knew was too sensitive to discuss. There are claims that Bush, as CIA director, was the one who denied President Carter access to certain UFO files. While this claim is unverified, it fits with Bush's reputation for secrecy and his belief in protecting intelligence sources and methods at all costs. Bill Clinton brought renewed energy to the UFO disclosure movement. Clinton was genuinely curious about UFOs and made real efforts to find out what the government knew. According to his associate attorney general Webster Hubble,

Clinton gave him two assignments upon taking office. find out who killed JFK and what the government knew about UFOs. Hubble would later write in his memoir that he was stonewalled on both counts. Despite his high position in the Justice Department, he couldn't get answers about UFOs. He was told the information was compartmentalized and that he didn't have the need to know. Clinton himself would later confirm his efforts to investigate UFOs. In a 2014 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Clinton said, I had all the Roswell papers reviewed, everything.

If there were aliens there, I wanted to know. He said he also had Area 51 investigated, but found no evidence of aliens. However, he added, if we were visited someday, I wouldn't be surprised. Clinton's efforts reportedly included asking for a review of all classified UFO materials. According to Dr. Stephen Greer of the Disclosure Project, Clinton was told that the information was in special access programs that even the president couldn't access without a specific operational need to know. There's also the interesting fact that Clinton's chief of staff, John Podesta, was and remains

a strong advocate for UFO disclosure. Podesta has publicly called for the release of UFO files and has said his biggest failure in the White House was not securing disclosure. After leaving government, Podesta wrote the forward to Leslie Keene's influential book, UFOs, generals, pilots, and government officials go on the record. Hillary Clinton would make UFO disclosure a minor but notable part of her 2016 presidential campaign. She appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live in March 2016 and made a remarkable promise. I would like us to go into those files and hopefully make as much of that public as possible.

If there's nothing there, let's tell people there's nothing there. If there is something there, unless it's a threat to national security. I think we ought to share it. Hillary also demonstrated knowledge of UFO terminology, correcting Kimmel when he used UFO by saying the new term was UAP, unidentified aerial phenomena. This suggested she had been briefed on the subject and was taking it seriously. Campaign Chairman John Podesta's emails, released by WikiLeaks,

revealed extensive correspondence about UFOs, including messages from, former astronaut Edgar Mitchell and Blink won 82 guitarist Tom DeLong, who would later play a significant role in UFO disclosure. These emails showed that the Clinton campaign was seriously considering how to approach the UFO issue. George W. Bush, like his father, largely avoided the UFO topic during his presidency. When asked about UFOs, he would deflect with humor. However, his administration did see some interesting developments. It was during Bush, Bush's presidency that the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was initiated,

though this wouldn't be revealed until 2017. Bush did make one interesting comment about UFOs. When asked by a reporter if he would tell the public about UFOs, Bush replied, Sure, I will tell you the first place I'd go is Area 51. While this was clearly meant as a joke, it acknowledged the public association between the presidency and UFO secrecy. Barack Obama brought a more nuanced approach to the UFO question.

Obama had a gift for addressing the topic with humor while leaving room for ambiguity. His appearances on late-night television often included UFO questions, which he handled deftly. On Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2015, when asked about UFOs, Obama said, I can't reveal anything. When Kimmel pressed, saying Clinton had said he'd looked into it, Obama responded, that's what we're instructed to say. The audience laughed, but Obama's expression suggested he might not be entirely joking. On the late show, Obama was asked about UFOs and replied,

The aliens won't let it happen. You'd reveal all their secrets. They exercise strict control over us. Again, delivered as a joke, but with an undertone that left room for interpretation. More significantly, in 2021 after leaving office, Obama made more serious comments about UAPs on the Late Late Show with James Corden. What is true and I'm actually being serious here is that there's footage and records of objects in the skies that we don't know exactly what they are. We can't explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern.

This was a remarkable admission from a former president, that there were objects in our skies that defied explanation. Obama's statement helped legitimize the UAP discussion and suggested that presidents were indeed briefed on these mysteries. Donald Trump initially seemed dismissive of UFOs, but his administration would oversee the most significant UFO disclosure in American history. In 2017, the New York Times revealed the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a Pentagon program that investigated UFOs from 2007 to 2000. and reportedly continued in some form after.

Along with this revelation came the release of three Navy videos showing encounters with unidentified objects. These videos, known as F-L-I-R-G-I-M-B-A-L and G-O-F-A-S-T showed objects performing maneuvers that seemed to defy physics. The Pentagon confirmed the videos were authentic, marking the first time the U.S. government officially released UFO footage. Trump himself seemed to evolve on the issue. Initially dismissive, he later acknowledged being briefed on UFO encounters. In an interview with his son, Don Jr., when asked about Roswell, Trump said, I won't talk to you about what I know about it, but it's very interesting.

In 2020, Trump told Fox News that he had been briefed on the Navy UFO encounters. I did have one very brief meeting on it, but people are saying they're seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly. Yet he also said the Navy pilots, see things that are a little bit different than in the past, so we're going to see, but we'll watch it.

Most significantly, the COVID relief bill signed by Trump in December 2020 included a provision requiring the Director of National Intelligence to provide Congress with an unclassified report on UAPs within 180 days. This led to the June 2021 preliminary assessment that acknowledged most UAP incidents remained unexplained. Joe Biden's administration has overseen unprecedented transparency on UAPs. The June 2021 preliminary assessment to Congress was a watershed moment. The report examined 144 UAP incidents and could only explain one.

It acknowledged that some UAPs appeared to demonstrate advanced technology and that they posed a potential threat to flight safety and national safety. security. Following this report, the Pentagon established the airborne object identification and management synchronization group, later reorganized as the All-Domain Anomily Resolution Office, AARO. For the first time since Project Blue Book, the U.S. government had an official publicly acknowledged office investigating UFOs. NASA also announced it would conduct its own UAP study, marking a significant shift from its previous reluctance to engage with the topic. The agency emphasized that the study would be transparent and scientific, focusing on identifying

available data and determining how NASA could contribute to understanding UAPs. Congressional hearings in 2022 and 2023 featured remarkable testimony. Military officers described encounters with objects that demonstrated capabilities beyond known human technology. David Grouch, a former intelligence officer, testified under oath that the U.S. government had retrieved, crashed non-human craft, and biological remains. While his claims remain unverified, the fact that such testimony was given in a congressional hearing represents a dramatic shift from the denial and ridicule that characterized earlier eras. Through all of this, Biden himself has remained largely silent on UAPs, allowing his administration to handle the issue through normal channels.

This approach, treating UAPs as a legitimate national security and scientific issue, rather than a fringe topic, may be more effective than dramatic presidential pronouncements. Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages. Looking back at Carter's promise and experience in the context of this long history, We can see how his moment represented both a breakthrough and a limit. Carter was the first president to openly acknowledge seeing a UFO, the first to promise full disclosure,

and the first to discover how difficult that promise was to fulfill. Every president since has had to grapple with the same fundamental tensions Carter faced. The public's right to know conflicts with legitimate security concerns. The desire for transparency bumps against the reality of compartmentalized information, The promise of disclosure confronts the possibility that full disclosure might be more destabilizing than secrecy. The object Carter saw that night in Leary remains unidentified. Despite decades of investigation and speculation, no one has definitively proven what it was. The Venus hypothesis remains popular among skeptics, but it doesn't fully account for all aspects of Carter's description.

The rocket launch theory has timing problems. The alien spacecraft theory lacks physical evidence. But perhaps the specific identity of what Carter saw matters less than what his sighting represents. It was a moment when someone who would become the most powerful person on Earth encountered something he couldn't explain. It was an experience that would lead to a promise of transparency that couldn't be kept, revealing the limits of even presidential power.

Today, as we stand in an era of unprecedented UAP transparency, we can see Carter's experience as part of a longer arc toward disclosure. Each president who asked questions, each official who pushed for answers, each witness who came forward despite stigma, they all contributed to this moment. The journey from Truman's careful acknowledgement that flying saucers weren't made on earth to Biden's administration officially studying UAPs represents a remarkable evolution. What was once ridiculed is now researched. What was once denied is now documented.

What presidents once wouldn't discuss is now the subject of congressional hearings and Pentagon briefings. And at the heart of this story stands Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer from Georgia who saw something strange in the sky and had the courage to say so. His broken promise of full disclosure may have disappointed many, but his willingness to speak truthfully about his experience helped begin the long process of bringing the UFO phenomenon out of the UFO phenomenon out of the world. the shadows. The universe remains vast and full of mysteries. We still don't know what Carter saw that night in 1969. We don't know what Truman really thought about flying saucers. What Eisenhower might have encountered, what Kennedy was trying to uncover, what Nixon might have shown Jackie Gleason, what Reagan knew that made him talk constantly about alien threats, what Clinton discovered in his searches, what Obama knows but can't reveal, or what Trump was briefed on that he

found so interesting. But we do know that the conversation has fundamentally changed. The question is no longer whether UFOs exist. The government has acknowledged they do. The question is no longer whether they're worth studying. NASA, the Pentagon, and Congress agree they are. The question now is what they are, where they come from, and what they mean for humanity's understanding of its place in the cosmos. Carter's citing and Leary was a small moment that became part of a much larger story. The story of how a democracy grapples with mystery, how power confronts the unknown, and how truth slowly emerges despite institutional resistance. It's a story that continues today in congressional hearings, Pentagon offices, NASA studies, and the ongoing experiences of military

pilots and ordinary citizens who see things in the sky, they cannot explain. From that clear January evening in 1969 to today's congressional testimony about retrieved non-human craft. From Carter's broken promise to Biden's institutional transparency, from Project Blue Book to the All-Domain anomaly resolution office, the journey toward understanding what flies in our skies continues. And perhaps that's the real lesson. Not that any single president can reveal all mysteries, but that persistent pressure for truth, applied over decades, can slowly pry open even the most tightly held secrets. The men standing outside that Lions Club in Leary, Georgia,

couldn't have imagined that their siding would become part of this decades-long saga. They couldn't have known that one of their number would become president and struggle with promises of disclosure. They couldn't have foreseen that their experience would connect to a chain of presidential encounters with the unknown, stretching from Truman to Biden. But that's exactly what happened. That's the remarkable story of presidents and youths. UFOs, a story of personal experiences and political pressures, of promises made and promises

broken, of secrecy slowly giving way to transparency. It's a story that reminds us that even presidents are human, confronting mysteries they cannot fully understand or control. And it's a story that isn't over. As more information emerges, as technology advances, as our understanding of the universe expands. We may finally learn what Carter and his companions saw that night. We may discover what presidents have known and hidden, or what they sought but couldn't find. We may answer the fundamental question that has haunted humanity since we first looked up at the stars. Are we alone? Until then,

we have the legacy of leaders like Carter who saw something mysterious and had the courage to acknowledge it. We have the slow but steady progress toward transparency, and we have a the continuing wonder of looking up at the night sky, knowing that there are still things up there we don't understand. Things that even presidents, with all their power and access to secrets, find mystifying and awe-inspiring. That's the enduring power of Carter's UFO story. It's not just about what he saw that night in Leary. It's about the very human experience of encountering the unknown and the very democratic struggle to bring hidden truths to light. It's about the limits of power and the persistence of mystery. It's about promises we make and can't keep, and truths

that emerge despite our failures. From Leary to the Pentagon, from Carter's siding to today's revelations, the story continues. And somewhere in that story lies the answer to what flew over Georgia that January night in 1969, and what continues to fly in our skies today, defying explanation, challenging our understanding, and reminding us that the universe still holds secrets that even presidents cannot unlock.