BY KYLE LOVERN
Tennessee Republican congressman Tim Burchett has accused the U.S. government of a “huge cover-up” following a rise in “unidentified aerial phenomena” or UAP, widely known as UFOs (unidentified flying objects).
UFOs are not just reported by two guys driving down a country road drinking a six-pack. There used to be a stigma with the subject, but not as much as there used to be.
Many good, down-to-earth people have seen UFOs or UAPs. Many talk about them, few report what they saw and some just share with close friends or family members.
Most presidents, starting in the 1940s, and other political leaders have had an interest in UFOs. Some even reported having a sighting or incident themselves and had a keen interest in the subject.
Harry Truman was the president of the United States when Kenneth Arnold saw “flying saucers” over the state of Washington, ushering in the modern era of UFO sightings. He was president when the Roswell Incident occurred in 1947. That was the alleged crash of a UFO near a ranch in New Mexico and perhaps the first UFO cover-up. Truman was president in 1952 when UFOs buzzed Washington, D.C., over consecutive days. There were unknown, saucer-shaped crafts seen zooming over the White House, the Pentagon and the Capitol building, and newspaper headlines shouted about the sightings.
Did president Dwight D. Eisenhower have a secret treaty with aliens?
One day, near the start of his presidency, President Eisenhower vanished. The president had been in Palm Springs, California, at the time, and when no one could find him they feared the worst. Maybe a heart attack, stroke or some other health event. Eisenhower reappeared the next day at a church service. An excuse was given for his absence: he needed “emergency dental surgery,” an aide reported.
Whispers and rumors started immediately. Insiders were leaking a strange story that the president had rushed to Muroc Air Force Base (now Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California), met with aliens, and signed a treaty with them. His great-granddaughter, Laura Eisenhower, has appeared on several TV shows and said the story was true.
UFO sightings over the Soviet Union had President John F. Kennedy downright worried.
It was the height of the “Cold War,” and JFK was afraid that a UFO over the USSR might be mistaken for a missile and prompt the Russians to launch missiles of their own.
On Nov. 12, 1963, Kennedy dictated a memo ordering that the U.S. prepare to share sensitive information about UFOs with the USSR so there would be no apocalyptic mistakes. The president was shot dead in Dallas 10 days later. There have been rumors from conspiracy theorists about this too.
One day in 1973, President Richard Nixon allegedly escaped from his Secret Service detail and showed up at actor and comedian Jackie Gleason’s house alone. “I want to show you something,” the president told him.”
Nixon drove Gleason to Homestead Air Force Base, not far from Gleason’s home in Florida. The story is that the president showed his friend and golfing buddy the remains of alien bodies stored at the base. It was, of course, reported by the tabloids, but many believe there is truth to the story.
Both future presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan actually reported UFO sightings.
While running for governor of Georgia, Carter, speaking to a civic club, witnessed a blueish object floating in the sky with several other witnesses.
Carter told an interviewer, “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 … we were trying to figure out what in the world it could be, and then it receded into the distance.”
As president, Carter was keenly interested in what the government was keeping secret about the UFO phenomenon—and so he asked the top secret organization that would have that kind of information. CIA Director George W. Bush (later to be president) denied Carter’s initial requests, but Carter was persistent.
One night in 1974, from a Cessna Citation aircraft carrying then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, several witnessed a UFO.
Four persons were aboard the plane: the pilot, two security guards and the governor of California, Ronald Reagan. As the airplane approached Bakersfield, California, the passengers called the pilot’s attention to a strange object to their rear.
“It appeared to be several hundred yards away,” reports state. “It was a fairly steady light until it began to accelerate. Then it appeared to elongate. Then the light took off. It went up at a 45-degree angle at a high rate of speed.”
A week later, Reagan recounted the sighting to the bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal. Reagan told the editor, “We followed it for several minutes. It was a bright white light. We followed it to Bakersfield, and all of a sudden, to our utter amazement, it went straight up into the heavens.”
Of course, the subject has come up with former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
Bush has a ranch in Texas and UFOs were reportedly seen flying near his property.
It also came up in the last presidential primary debates.
The truth is out there, and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich had no trouble offering his version of it when asked about his UFO sighting.
“It was an unidentified flying object, OK? It’s, like, it’s unidentified,” Kucinich said during one of the few highlights at the Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia. “I saw something.”
And congressman of Michigan, future president Gerald Ford, asked for an investigation into UFO sightings in his state in the 1960s.
Project Blue Book, the Air Force group formed to investigate UFOs during that era, reportedly looked into numerous sightings.
Just this month, on Jan. 12, the Office for the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) published an unclassified report on UFOs or unidentified flying objects. The term UFO has been dropped in the government report in favor of the label “unidentified aerial phenomena.”
The report acknowledged a total of 510 UAP sightings, according to the 2022 report, with the overall reported sightings since the previous year’s report jumping by 366. This includes both sightings reported since 2021.
In 2020, videos were leaked of videos taken by military jet pilots of “tic tac” looking UFOs. The Pentagon had to come forward and state the videos were legit.
The Tennessee Republican congressman alleged there was a “huge cover-up, for whatever reason,” adding that “America is ready to know and stop with all the shenanigans.”
It is time for the government to have full disclosure on the subject and to inform the public about what they know. It’s time to tell the truth.
(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist for the Mountain Citizen.)