U.S. President Jimmy Carter has talked about his 1969 encounter with an unidentified flying object several times over the years. He’s never really been of the opinion that what he saw was an alien spacecraft, but maintains that he doesn’t quite know what it was, either.
On the latest episode of The Brian Lehrer Show, Carter again explains his experience, breaking it down in a straightforward fashion: “I don’t claim that it came from outer space,” he tells Lehrer, “But it was unidentified, it was flying, and it was an object.”
Carter was on the show promoting his new book A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power, which focuses on gender inequality around the world. The UFO thing was more of a sidebar.
One of the more recent times Carter has discussed the UFO incident was in a 2005 interview in GQ, in which he said:
I saw an unidentified flying object. I’ve never believed that it came from Mars. I know enough physics to know that you can’t have vehicles that are tangible in nature flying from Mars, looking around, and then flying back. But I saw an object one night when I was preparing to give a speech to a Lions Club. There were about twenty-five of us men standing around. It was almost time for the Lions Club supper to start, which I would eat and then I would give a speech. I was in charge of fifty-six Lions Clubs in southwest Georgia back in the late ’60s. And all of a sudden, one of the men looked up and said, “Look, over in the west!” And there was a bright light in the sky. We all saw it. And then the light, it got closer and closer to us. And then it stopped, I don’t know how far away, but it stopped beyond the pine trees. And all of a sudden it changed colour to blue, and then it changed to red, then back to white. And we were trying to figure out what in the world it could be, and then it receded into the distance. I had a tape recorder — because as I met with members of Lions Clubs, I would dictate their names on the tapes so I could remember them — and I dictated my observations. And when I got home, I wrote them down. So that’s an accurate description of what I saw. It was a flying object that was unidentified. But I have never thought that it was from outer space.
You know, I still think it could’ve been an alien ship. But then, I want to believe.
Comments
15 responses to “U.S. President Jimmy Carter Really Did See A UFO, Technically”
When will people learn UFO doesn’t automatically mean alien space ship?
I’ve seen a UFO, it was a flying object I could not Identify. Perhaps it’s time to re-educate people on what the Acronym actually means.
Edit: Added a word, it’s in Italics.
But it COULD mean alien spaceship!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t want to live in a Galaxy where Humanity is the only intelligent Lifeform.
But let’s be clear most alien species would either wipe us out or bypass this planet of primitive xenophobic savages. I hope their bypassing us.
The chances of two intelligent species not wiping themselves out long enough to invent interstellar travel, and make it to the other before they die out is incredibly slim. Chances are there is, has and will be life, and there is, has and will be intelligent life, but not close enough to our stupid arses for us to ever meet them.
Oh rest assured , statistically it seems certain they are out there, maybe even in the same galaxy as us. Gloriously zipping about in big shiny spaceships. But the laws of physics, and specifically that pesky traffic cop, the speed of light, means its highly improbable we’ll ever actually get to meet them. Maybe if we’re luck we might catch a stray radio signal, and all the worlds religions will have a collective meltdown, but thats about it.
That’s the tricky bit indeed.
I guess all we have right now is science fiction to speculate about how to travel great distances eg wormholes, other bending of space-and-time and fantastic technologies.
You mean exactly like how in this article it is specifically pointed out that UFO doesn’t mean alien space ship? Or some other way?
You see how they put the word “Technically” at the end of the title. As if to say while technically an Unidentified Aircraft is a UFO what we really mean when we say it is Flying Saucer.
FTFA:
Not exactly an appropriate time to arc up about people not knowing the difference between flying saucers and UFOs.
I’ll refer you to Popular Mechanics articles (posted 2012) “Project 1794” which was essentially R&D into the practical application of the “flying saucer” design, popularised through early Pulp-Fiction and B-movie.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/this-is-the-1950s-flying-saucer-the-air-force-wanted-to-build-13515270
http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/government-releases-more-declassified-flying-saucer-docs-13821358
We now, officially, know the source of this Urban-Myth and can really give the big-finger to “UFO” crackpots.
The “flying saucer” was found to be aerodynamically unstable, and essentially useless. Case closed.
Note: The only thing useful to come out of this project, is what we now know as Vector-Thrust. As seen in the JSF F-35 Lightning II (Vector-Thrust is not Anti-Gravity as UFO nuts like to claim flying saucers use/used… ) http://youtu.be/_Vy2NO4M-NY?t=18s
Forget all that. The whole concept of a flying saucer from ID4 on down comes from the one case in Washington in the mid 40s where a journalist took a pilot’s description of some objects he had seen that he described as moving like a saucer skipping across water and just saying that was the shape rather than his description of the motion.
http://youtu.be/IhRXpEaiz3Y?t=2m28s
The most surprising part of this article is that Jimmy Carter is still alive
89 years old!
I’m sure he did see a UFO. The question really is whether the UFO originated from this planet or another. I always liked to believe in the latter, but I watched an enlightening documentary yesterday called Mirage Men which basically has government agents admitting that many of the stories UFOlogists believe originate from them in an attempt to cover up the development of new technologies. Who knows the truth, but I definitely recommend the watch to folks. Check it out here: http://www.yekra.com/mirage-men