Presidential Politics & the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

What I found so fascinating and disturbing about the UFO flap during last week's Democratic Presidential Debate in Philadelphia aside from Tim Russert's predictable attempt to further marginalize and belittle Dennis Kucinich (especially considering Russert's past powderpuff interviews with VP Dick Cheney), was Russert's oblique mainstream-media slapdown at what is one of the dominant themes of the 21st Century: the search for extraterrestrial life -a search that the combined governments of Europe, Asia, and North America are spending hundreds of $ billions to undertake.

Russert apparently was also unaware of the 2002 Roper Poll that showed approximately 70% of the American public believe the “Government does not tell everything it knows about UFOs and extraterrestrial life," which lead us to the post-debate interview with Chris Mathews.

In answering a follow up question to Russert's grilling of Kucinich,  New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson pointed out to Mathews that while he doesn't believe in UFO's, he nevertheless stressed that the US government has not disclosed the available documentation to make a final determination one way or the other. So Richardson confirmed that a government cover up of UFO documents is underway, and that he had personal experience of this while serving in government.

An incredulous Mathews asked Richardson, “Did you say the United States government is covering up a history of the UFO sighting in your state?” Richardson replied: “they [the government] don’t produce documents, Chris. They should just get it all out, and there’s a known history about this.”

Whether the UFO government cover up becomes an election issue or not will be a very interesting development to observe. Still, the fact that Richardson is now on the record is significant for those that have been arguing such a cover up for decades.

What will be even more interesting is how Hillary Clinton will eventually respond to the UFO question given Bill's earlier interest in it, and unconfirmed reports that she participated in a UFO briefing by Laurence Rockefeller in 1995.

In an earlier town hall meeting in Round Rock Texas, Richardson was asked whether he would pledge to release files on the Roswell UFO crash. He responded, “"I remember I had my constituents ask me. I was the congressman and I said, 'Well, Department of Defense, Los Alamos labs, what is this? What is the data you have?'" Richardson said the official reply was: "Oh, it's classified." He said: "That ticked me off."

It's fascinating that questions by Tim Russert and Chris Matthews to democratic candidates on UFO’s has brought out into the Presidential election the issue of the possibility of extraterrestrial life. My own take on all this is that great quote from Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Posted by Casey Kazan.

Related Galaxy posts:

"The Great Silence" -A Galaxy Insight
Stanley Kubrick & the Mythology of Extraterrestrial Life -A Galaxy Insight
Advanced Civilizations in the Universe -A Galaxy Insight
The Worldwide UFO Phenomena -“Religion or Science”?
Natural or Extraterrestrial Phenomena
Non-Carbon Lifeforms -Why We may Overlook
"Where are They?" -The Fermi Paradox Answered
Orson Wells Video on his Mercury Theater Presentation of "War of the Worlds"
Cruising the Goldilocks Zone -The Search for Super Earths

 

Comments

[D Rehr]

Casey- proper journalistic form requires you to mention someone's full name before subsequent references that include only the last name. In your post above, who is "Richardson." Candidate Gov. Bill Richardson, one would assume? Or someone else?

Correct! My mistake. Thanks, Casey