For decades now, the US government has been extensively investigating UFOs, and the general
public has been desperate for answers.
But is the truth really out there?
And do the people at the top know more than they’re letting on?
This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; do US presidents
know the truth about aliens?
Are you a fiend for facts?
Are you constantly curious?
Then why not subscribe to Unveiled for more clips like this one?
And ring the bell for more fascinating content!
A 2020 poll by the research company Ipsos determined that almost half of Americans believe
that aliens have visited Earth.
Though UFO sightings do occur all over the world, by far the most happen in the United
States, with the majority of the rest happening in other English-speaking countries.
It’s thought a leading reason for this is the mainstream popularity of science-fiction…
the thinking being that the more movies there are about alien encounters, the more people
are supposedly primed to blame various strange phenomena on visitors from outer space.
But because so many sightings do come from the US, the president of the United States
is in a unique position - as the one person with the authority to investigate and declassify
anything they see fit, they potentially have more knowledge about what is (or isn’t)
out there than even other world leaders.
Perhaps the first president who might have known a thing or two about aliens was Harry
S. Truman.
In office from 1945 to 1953, his term coincided with the US government’s earliest investigations,
Project Sign and Project Grudge, both of which happened in the late 1940s.
Sign and Grudge weren’t particularly successful or noteworthy, but they were followed by arguably
the most famous UFO investigation of all: Project Blue Book.
Blue Book was officially launched in March 1952, just months before the famous Washington
D.C. UFO incident that July, when various flying objects were reported in the sky above
the capital, including over the White House.
In response, the Robertson Panel was also launched by the CIA, which further reviewed
Blue Book to determine whether UFOs really were a threat to national security.
Both the Panel and eventually Blue Book itself concluded that they weren’t, with calls
for the public to be better educated on aerial phenomena so that there would be less unidentified
objects in the future.
But America’s interest definitely didn’t stop there.
The most recently declassified UFO investigation we know about is the Advanced Aerospace Threat
Identification Program, which ran from 2007 to 2012 primarily under the Obama administration.
Obama himself has commented on UFOs, saying he gets asked about them frequently, and according
to an interview he gave to GQ magazine; “the stuff going on that’s top secret isn’t
nearly as exciting as you expect”.
Regardless of how dull “the truth” supposedly is, however, for as long as the public keeps
reporting UFOs, the government looks set to keep investigating them, even if these investigations
remain classified for years – and sometimes decades – after the fact.
All of which means that there are plenty who believe not only that UFOs have landed, but
that there is an enormous conspiracy where the US government and military is covering
up the existence of aliens.
Before now, as publicly elected figures, many presidential candidates have promised that
they will blow the lid off any conspiracy if they reach the Oval Office.
But none have.
So, what gives?
One such candidate, who pledged to reveal all, was Jimmy Carter - who became president
in 1977.
The reason Carter is so noteworthy is that he had had a UFO encounter of his own, in
1969.
He didn’t get around to reporting it until 1973, but claimed he saw a bright green light
in the sky one night, which had no “solid substance” to it and which hovered in the
air for roughly ten minutes, changing colour all the while.
Carter’s account wasn’t officially investigated until 1976 - seven years after it happened,
and one year before he became president - and although it was found that other alleged witnesses
didn’t remember the encounter, Carter didn’t let it drop.
He promised he would investigate UFOs himself before taking office, so it looked like the
American public might finally get answers some thirty years after one of the defining
UFO moments, the Roswell Incident.
Unfortunately, Carter broke his promise by only vaguely claiming that “defense implications”
stopped him from declassifying anything.
But despite Carter’s bad example, many other presidents have harnessed the mystery surrounding
aliens, too.
Bill Clinton said he reviewed all the files on Area 51 during his time in power, just
to be sure that there weren’t any otherworldly creatures there… which, according to him
there aren’t, with the Nevada base being used to develop stealth technology instead.
This has been the official line on Area 51 since at least its declassification in 2013,
too, but that doesn’t mean the extraterrestrial theories have abated at all.
In fact, the high security and secrecy around the place almost naturally encourages them.
The Air Force takes security so seriously there that when the “storm Area 51” meme
went viral in 2019, they released a statement warning any would-be ET liberators to stay
well clear of the site.
All of which means that Area 51 occupies an unmatched place in modern UFO mythology, even
if Clinton insists that it’s the home of human-built stealth planes, only.
Other presidents who have drawn on UFOs include Ronald Reagan, who referenced them at length
during a 1987 speech at the UN, to demonstrate how global tensions and differences could
vanish in the face of an extraterrestrial threat.
During her campaign in 2016, Hillary Clinton also promised to let the public know the truth,
as part of a pledge almost identical to the one Jimmy Carter made in the ‘70s – only,
she lost the election, so didn’t get the chance to follow through.
Similarly, speaking to Joe Rogan in 2019, Bernie Sanders promised to tell us the truth
if he got the Democratic nomination and eventually into the White House – but he backed out
of his party’s race a year later.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, appears to have very little interest in UFOs, once telling
ABC News that he doesn’t particularly believe in them.
Though, others have argued that his establishing the Space Force might suggest that Trump sees
aliens as a bigger threat than he’s publicly letting on.
Finally, though, and regardless of who knows what, it remains unclear why the US government
would be so intent, for decades, on keeping the existence of aliens a secret.
But there are more than a few theories… one of the most popular being that it’s
so the US can harbour powerful alien technology for themselves and reverse-engineer anything
from futuristic spaceships to potentially devastating alien weapons.
There’s one main issue with this idea, though, because if this was the case then you’d
expect America to already be the most technologically advanced country on Earth…
But, in fact, according to Bloomberg’s 2020 Innovation Index, the US is only the ninth
most innovative country globally, with Germany, South Korea, and Singapore making up the top
three.
If, then, America does have access to alien technology, then they’re either not the
only ones, or so intent on keeping it secret they’re willing to fall behind in the meantime,
or the tech’s so advanced that no-one’s yet worked out how to use it.
Whatever the truth, as the commander-in-chief of the United States, able to access all information
and declassify at will, many modern presidents certainly will have looked into UFO files.
They understand as much as anyone in America could do… but whether the real story is
even something worth hearing, or simply too dangerous to become public knowledge, we may
never know.
What do you think?
Is there anything we missed?
Let us know in the comments, check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you
subscribe and ring the bell for our latest content.