Jimmy Carter Was Our Most Pro-Alien President

The great statesman had no issue with establishing ‘a community of galactic civilizations’
Jimmy Carter Was Our Most Pro-Alien President

With the passing of James Earl Carter Jr., America mourns one of its least talked-about presidents in recent memory. Considering how and how much we talk about other presidents of the ‘70s and ‘80s, that might not be such a bad thing, but it can also mean unfairly overlooking a fascinating and accomplished man. He established both the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, grew one hell of a peanut and navigated several sticky diplomatic situations. He had a Nobel Peace Prize, for Beyonce’s sake. He was also by far the president most on the side of letting us see them aliens.

In fact, Carter’s advocacy for extraterrestrial transparency began with his own close encounter with a potentially otherworldly kind. In 1969, he was giving a speech at a Georgia Lions Club meeting when an audience member quite rudely interrupted him to point out an object in the sky. Like, this is a former state senator; compose yourself, Carol.

Decorum aside, this was a bunch of civic-minded Southerners we’re talking about, so soon enough, everyone was standing around staring at the sky. Carter later described it as a bright light that moved toward the group and then stopped behind some pine trees and rapidly changed colors before disappearing. Four years later, after he’d been elected governor of Georgia, the International UFO Bureau asked him to write a report on the incident, and probably unlike most politicians in his position, he actually did it.

Although Carter could vividly recall the incident well into his later years, he conceded that what he saw was probably not an alien spacecraft. Others theorized it was a particularly bright appearance from Venus, but Carter argued that he’d seen Venus before and that was no Venus. He assumed it was some kind of military aircraft, though it didn’t make the kinds of sounds you would expect from such a machine, and a former Air Force scientist claims the sighting is consistent with a type of chemical cloud his team used to study the upper atmosphere in the area at the time. “Aliens” might be the less weird explanation.

Still, Carter remained committed to open relations with outer space. During his presidency, as part of a general effort to keep NASA afloat, he contributed to the Voyager Golden Record that was sent into space as a sort of Earth time capsule, leaving a message for any passing aliens that we’re a friendly planet willing to “join a community of galactic civilizations” and we hope they like our art. During his campaign, he promised to “make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists,” though he ultimately decided against it due to “defense implications,” which just deepens the intrigue. 

At this point, having promised to pressure the Pentagon to declassify its UFO files upon his reelection, Donald Trump may be our only hope, which might be the first time those words have appeared in that order.

Scroll down for the next article
Forgot Password?