How Presidents Have handled The Topic Of UFOs
Robert Barrow, Argosy UFO, Winter 1977-78 (Grant Cameron)
original source | fair use notice
Summary: Two men voiced their concern over the existence of UFOs before
assuming the highest elective office in this country: Former President
Gerald R. Ford and President Jimmy Carter.
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Two men voiced their concern over the existence of UFOs before assuming
the highest elective office in this country: Former President Gerald R.
Ford and President Jimmy Carter. As House Minority Leader, Ford called
for Congressional Inquiries into the nature of UFO sightings, but he
did nothing on the subject while President. And Carter, who sighted a
UFO himself prior to becoming President, has let the UFO issue slide
into obscurity while in office.
For a tiny fraction of Americans and individuals in other lands, the
1976 Presidential elections had more at stake than economics, national
defense and foreign policy. To those who have spent many years
examining the subject of UFOs, the UFO was an important a campaign
issue as any.
Of course, the situation was considerably less complex back in 1947,
when UFO reports first began to see national prominence in this
country. When a reporter asked President Truman, during a press
conference, if he ever saw a "flying saucer," Truman merely laughed and
shrugged off the topic by replying that his only familiarity with
saucers was what he had read in the newspapers.
Thirty years later, UFOs are still with us, whatever they are. They did
not go away, despite all the skeptical claims and "expert"assurances to
the contrary. In the seventies, a growing number of trained and
influential people are investigating UFOs in deadly earnest.
However, UFOs are not only a scientific concern. They are a
Presidential enigma as well.
A few months ago, President Jimmy Carter, then on the campaign trail,
told a reporter from the National Enquirer, "If I ever become President
I"ll make every piece of information this country has about UFOs
sightings available to the public, and the scientists." This was hardly
an ill-considered promise. In 1969, Carter and a group of friends saw
what they believed to be a UFO.
"It was big," Carter told reporters, "it was very bright, it changed
colors and was about the size of the moon." The thing remained in view
about 10 minutes, and its identity is still unknown.
"One thing's for sure," commented the future President, "I'll never
make fun of people who say they've seen unidentified flying objects
in the sky . . . I am convinced that UFOs exist because I have seen
one."
The big question for UFO researchers now is, can Jimmy Carter carry out
his promise? My own concern is particularly spirited on this issue,
because I recall another U.S. President who was once extremely involved
with the UFO subject. However, once in office, he never again tackled
the problem. His name? Gerald R. Ford.
Soon after I began my own pursuit of the UFO anomaly in 1963, I started
an incessant letter-writing project, a practice to which I still resort
occasionally. I wrote anybody and everybody who might be able to help
me learn about UFOs.
During 1965 and 1966, I found many of my queries going to public
officials. The late Senator Everett M. Dirksen, for instance, responded
to my letter by indicating that, if there was a possibility of having
congressional hearings on UFOs he would have no objections. The late
Senator Robert F. Kennedy answered my letters several times, indicating
skepticism - but also an open mind - on the existence of UFOs.
And then there were letters to and from Mr. Ford. But some background
must be offered before continuing.
During early 1966, Ford's home state of Michigan experienced a
variety of fascinating UFO sightings. These incidents, regrettably,
became popularly known as the "swamp gas" sightings, although former
Air Force consultant J. Allen Hynek only intended marsh gas as a
probable explanation for reports in a couple of areas.
Ford, then a Michigan congressman and Minority Leader of the House of
Representatives, became outraged with the Air Force's investigation
of the reports. In addition, his office was deluged with letters,
telegrams and phone calls from anxious constituents and UFO observers
who demanded that the official investigation should itself be
investigated.
On March 25, 1966, the first of two important Ford press releases
appeared. The minority leader was calling for a full Congressional UFO
inquiry. On March 28, yet another press release surfaced; attached was
a copy of a letter Ford was sending to the Chairman of the House
Science and Astronautics Committee, and the House Armed Services
Committee.
Mr. Ford's wishes were unmistakably clear. He wanted a Congressional
inquiry, and quickly.
The Michigan Congressman got his wish. On April 5, 1966, Congress held
an open hearing on UFOs, an unprecedented move. While the hearing
failed to accomplish as much as it might have, it produced an Air Force
promise that arrangements would be made for an impartial, civilian
investigation.
On October 7, 1966, the Air Force announced that the University of
Colorado would undertake an open-ended UFO study, free of government
influence.
And this is where the letters I received from Mr. Ford enter the story.
[[Please visit the following address to see the reprint of this letter:
http://www.presidentialufo.com/1970s.htm]]
The letter reproduced here is one of several on UFOs I had from Ford
during 1966 and 1968. The one pictured is the last of the series.
In 1966, I was intrigued by the Michigan UFO reports. I wrote Mr. Ford
often, and he frequently responded. Once, he took the opportunity to
query the Air Force about UFOs on my behalf.
A close inspection of the Ford letter may bridge a gap that has
remained in UFO research until now. The letter, dated May 13, 1968, was
composed more than two years after the Michigan incidents, and more
than a year and a half after the Colorado University began its study.
The middle paragraph expresses Ford's vital interest in a UFO
investigation.
But it is the last paragraph that tells all. It was written by Mr. Ford
about the May 14, 1968 issue of Look Magazine, in which author John G.
Fuller exposed the Colorado University "investigation" as the farce
that it actually was. Fuller, leaving no room for doubt, listed so much
evidence of the absurdities and ever-present negative attitude of the
supposedly open-minded Project Director (the late Dr. Edward U.
Condon), that a total waste of over a half million tax dollars was
obvious.
The Look piece, entitled "Flying Saucer Fiasco," also included a
statement by the then-Director of the National Investigations Committee
on Aerial Phenomena (a civilian UFO agency), Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe
(USMC, ret.). Keyhoe announced that NICAP would no longer support
Colorado's work because of its apparent bias against the UFO subject.
Gerald Ford was familiar with the Look article and he, like many
disillusioned Americans, fully realized that the UFO investigation he
worked so diligently to get was in serious trouble.
He ends his letter on a hopeful note, but the fact is that Ford
probably knew the answer to UFOs would not be found at the University
of Colorado.
The puzzler is, why did President Gerald Ford make no further positive
statements - or any comments at all - about UFOs after he became the
Chief executive? What happened to all the vivid discontent he displayed
so selflessly in the sixties?
Why, as President, did Mr. Ford not fulfill the sort of promise that
President-elect Carter boldly made?
Even more curious, indeed, is the question of whether Mr. Carter will
be able to accomplish his plan to get all the government's UFO
information to the public (one would assume that his use of the word
"country" is equal with my use of the word government, as it relates to
the Carter statement, quoted earlier in this article).
Certainly, we can speculate on the situation. UFOs are reported to be
so superior to our own aircraft and weaponry that the Defense
Department can only express frustration in trying to equal their
maneuvers (and this is true of other countries that deal with the UFO
mystery). Would any President want to tell us that UFOs are real, but
that no nation on earth knows what they are, where they are from, or
why they are here?
Or is such speculation just wild?
Are UFOs real? Look at the Ford letter once more. "I share your concern
and am disturbed," he wrote. But what happened to all of that concern,
and how disturbed did he remain?
Presuming that the National Enquirer account is accurate, President
Carter has truly made an important promise to Americans and people in
other lands who want to know, once and for all, the solution to the UFO
mystery.
Will he fare better than the last President who proclaimed a personal
interest in UFOs?
http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1797.htm
As it turned out, after this article appeared in Argosy in 1977, Carter
made no progress toward getting governmental UFO information
declassified, either, and backed off his campaign rhetoric that he'd
push for disclosure of such info to the public. After these men get
into that highest office, they often don't fulfull their glowing
promises, as most of us realize. Ford was no different, but he did more
than any other politician, up to that time, in getting some respectable
recognition for a much maligned subject, UFOs. Upon taking office in
1974, as President, he clammed up and seemed to have no interest in
opening governmental UFO files to the public. However, the FOIA, was
created a bit later, and helped facilitate the public disclosure of
many formerly declassified or confidential documents. The CIA, when I
queried them in Dec., 1969, continued to maintain they had no interest
in UFOs, and kept no files on the subject. Anyone can now go to the
CIA's online site, under the FOIA section, and peruse numerous
documents the CIA has stored. So many others, however, remain
classified. The same is true of the NSA and FBI...folks can access a
letter I wrote to the CIA in Dec. 1969 (Document #96) -- a copy was
forwarded to the DIA.
Dr. Bipolar
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