Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter (1924–2024) was the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. On the UFO topic, he is known for having seen a bright, unusual object in the sky with the naked eye in 1969, and for promising open government handling of UFO data in his campaign.
Jimmy Carter (1924–2024) was a Democratic politician, the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, and earlier, from 1971 to 1975, governor of the state of Georgia. He is usually cited on the UFO topic for two things: a personal experience and a campaign promise.
The 1969 sighting
According to Carter's account, in 1969, while preparing for his gubernatorial campaign, he attended a Lions Club event in Leary, Georgia, as a speaker. By his account, in the company of roughly ten to twenty people, at evening twilight, he saw a bright object in the sky that changed color and appeared to approach and then recede. In 1973 he also gave a written account of the event on a report form of NICAP, a civilian UFO organization. The form gives October 1969, but according to researchers the event took place in January 1969. Carter later recalled the experience in several interviews. He said he did not believe he had seen an extraterrestrial craft, but that he also did not know what it was.
The presidential candidate's promise
In the 1976 campaign, Carter promised that if elected, he would make public the US government's data related to UFOs. During his presidency, this did not happen in the form that those interested in the topic had hoped. In 1977, the White House science adviser asked NASA to consider restarting UFO investigations. The space agency declined in December of the same year, because it saw no new physical evidence on which an investigation could be built.
Official finding and skeptical view
Since the Condon Committee's 1969 report and the closure of Project Blue Book, the official finding has been that UFO sightings do not prove extraterrestrial visitation. The best-known explanation for Carter's sighting was offered by Robert Sheaffer, an American skeptic writer: according to his calculations, at the given time and in the given direction, Venus was visible brightly in the sky. This, however, is a proposed explanation, not a proven fact.
Carter later continued to advocate for open handling of the topic, but he did not claim an extraterrestrial origin.