In 1973, before the presidential elections, yet to become President, Jimmy Carter filed a report with the International UFO Bureau claiming he had seen a UFO in October 1969. Along with other witnesses, Carter saw a bright UFO that changed colors and moved towards and away from the Earth before disappearing. He was quite vocal about his beliefs on UFOs and promised to public all available information about UFOs if he became president.
“He described waiting outside for a Lion’s Club Meeting in Leary, Georgia, to begin, at about 7:30 p.m., when he spotted what he called ‘the darndest thing I’ve ever seen’ in the sky.” Along with 10 to 12 other witnesses, Carter observed a bright object in the sky, which was about the size of the moon. (Source)
“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 color to blue, and then it changed to red, then back to white,” Carter told GQ in 2005. The object reportedly hovered about 30 degrees above the horizon, moved towards and away from the Earth, and eventually disappeared into the distance. Carter’s experience led him to make a vow to never again ridicule individuals who claimed to have seen a UFO.
“One thing’s for sure, I’ll never make fun of people who say they’ve seen unidentified objects in the sky. If I become President, I’ll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists,” Carter said.
As for the object that Carter saw, it has since been classified as “a high altitude barium release cloud launched from Eglen AFB,” which sounds legit. However, after winning the presidency, Carter backed away from this promise, citing concerns about national security and defense implications. His experience with a UFO is just one of many reported sightings that have fueled conspiracy about extraterrestrial life and government cover-ups.
President Carter’s Disturbing Briefing on UFOs and Religion
Former NASA researcher Ed Harris claimed that serious researchers on the subject believe the story of former President Jimmy Carter crying after being briefed about classified UFO information to be true. According to the story corroborated by multiple witnesses, U.S. presidents are given only a brief overview of the subject by the CIA, and presidential curiosity is not considered a sufficient need to know.
After being repeatedly stonewalled, Carter was given “the talk,” which reportedly left him deeply sobbing and visibly disturbed for weeks. He was told that major religions, including Christianity, were created by extraterrestrials to prevent humans from destroying themselves while they ran experiments on us, and that they made us. Carter, a deeply religious man who had witnessed a UFO with six other people, realized that releasing such information could cause tremendous economic and social upheaval.
Below you can read Ed Harris’ statement on the subject that he wrote on Quora:
Yes, the incident of Jimmy Carter crying after being briefed about classified information regarding UFO’s is largely believed to be true by the serious researchers on the subject. As a forewarning, the following information is very unsettling and will explain why Carter never “kept his promise” of revealing classified UFO information to the public.
According to the story that was corroborated by more than one witness, U.S. presidents are only given a cursory overview of the subject. Apparently, the CIA runs the program, only provide information to the President on a need to know basis, and do not consider presidential curiosity as sufficient need to know. This was implemented after Kennedy, and all presidents after him have been given only summary briefings (some presidents for unknown reasons were given more than others).
Okay on to your question. President Carter is a deeply religious man who had also witnessed a UFO with 6 other people. Everyone thought that he would be the one to finally release UFO info to the public but as the story goes, he was repeatedly stonewalled. Eventually, the CIA had “the talk” with him, and afterward it was reported that he sunk his head in his hands and not only began to deeply sob, but was visibly disturbed for some weeks afterward.
What was he told and shown?
He was told that the major religions including Christianity were programs created by extraterrestrials to prevent us from destroying ourselves while they ran their experiments on us – and that they made us. At this moment it became clear to Carter that such information could cause tremendous economic and social upheaval. I should add that I am not only a Christian but a clergyman, so I am in no way attempting to promote atheism here. In fact, how God fits into this might be an interesting separate post. Nevertheless, these are the facts as I know them to be.
Author and world’s leading UFO researcher Richard Dolan also writes about this incident in his book “UFOs and the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed.” According to his book, there are claims that President Carter was given a UFO briefing at the White House on June 14, 1977, which he was then bound to secrecy about.
The briefing was supposedly given by a lone MJ-12 briefing officer and several independent sources. The leaked “Executive Briefing: Project Aquarius” document gives the standard account of multiple retrievals of alien technology. While there is no hard evidence to support the claims of the briefing, a presidential aide, who was “very, very close to Carter,” witnessed President sobbing after a UFO-related briefing in the Oval Office.
Carter Administration & Project Blue Book
Daniel Sheehan, a Harvard-educated Constitutional Trial Lawyer and Appellate Attorney has worked on many high-profile cases in his career. In 1977, he was approached by his friend Marcia Smith, who informed him that President Carter had demanded that the CIA provided classified information about unidentified flying objects to him, but George H. Bush, who was the CIA director at the time, refused to give this information to the president.
Sheehan tried to obtain information on the UFO phenomena and extraterrestrials from the Vatican Library but was unsuccessful. However, with Carter’s help, he managed to get access to the classified portions of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book for a few hours in May 1977, where he claimed to have discovered classified documents and photographs of a crashed UFO being investigated by Air Force personnel.
“There were these photographs of unmistakable — of a UFO sitting on the ground. It had crashed,” Sheehan said. “Apparently, it had hit into this field and had dug up, kind of plowed this kind of trough through this field,” he paused for a second.
“It was wedged into the side of this bank,” he said after taking a deep breath. “There was snow all around the picture. The vehicle was wedged into the side of this mud-like embankment — kind of up at an angle. There was Air Force personnel. As I cranked the little handle and looked at additional photos, these Air Force people were taking pictures.” (Click here to read the full article)
When Mr. Sheehan left the room, the guard asked to see his yellow legal pad and flipped through the pages, missing the alien hieroglyphs Sheehan had copied on the back of the pad. Sheehan offered to share this information with the religious establishment; they told him they were not interested.
