IPR Editor Quoted Twice in New York Times Article About Hillary Clinton and UFOs

Posted to New York Times

Hillary Clinton Gives U.F.O. Buffs Hope She Will Open the X-Files

By Amy Chozick
May 10, 2016

When Jimmy Kimmel asked Hillary Clinton in a late-night TV interview about U.F.O.s, she quickly corrected his terminology.

“You know, there’s a new name,” Mrs. Clinton said in the March appearance. “It’s unexplained aerial phenomenon,” she said. “U.A.P. That’s the latest nomenclature.”

Known for her grasp of policy, Mrs. Clinton has spoken at length in her presidential campaign on topics as diverse as Alzheimer’s research and military tensions in the South China Sea. But it is her unusual knowledge about extraterrestrials that has struck a small but committed cohort of voters.

Mrs. Clinton has vowed that barring any threats to national security, she would open up government files on the subject, a shift from President Obama, who typically dismisses the topic as a joke. Her position has elated U.F.O. enthusiasts, who have declared Mrs. Clinton the first “E.T. candidate.”

“Hillary has embraced this issue with an absolutely unprecedented level of interest in American politics,” said Joseph G. Buchman , who has spent decades calling for government transparency about extraterrestrials.

Mrs. Clinton, a cautious candidate who often bemoans being the subject of Republican conspiracy theories, has shown surprising ease plunging into the discussion of the possibility of extraterrestrial beings.

She has said in recent interviews that as president she would release information about Area 51 , the remote Air Force base in Nevada believed by some to be a secret hub where the government stores classified information about aliens and U.F.O.s.

In a radio interview last month, she said, “I want to open the files as much as we can.” Asked if she believed in U.F.O.s, Mrs. Clinton said: “I don’t know. I want to see what the information shows.” But she added, “There’s enough stories out there that I don’t think everybody is just sitting in their kitchen making them up.”

When asked about extraterrestrials in an interview with The Conway Daily Sun in New Hampshire last year, Mrs. Clinton promised to “get to the bottom of it.”

“I think we may have been” visited already, she said in the interview. “We don’t know for sure.”

While Americans typically point to issues like the economy and terrorism as top priorities for the next president, a desire for answers about aliens has inspired a passionate bloc of voters, who make their voices heard on social media.

Stephen Bassett, who lobbies the government on extraterrestrial issues, views a Clinton presidency as a chance to finally get the United States to disclose all it knows about life beyond Earth. Since November 2014, Mr. Bassett’s organization has sent roughly 2.5 million Twitter messages to presidential candidates, elected officials and the news media urging a serious discussion of the issue.

“That was a storm, and now it’s like a steady drip,” Mr. Bassett said.

The movement viewed Mrs. Clinton’s decision to correct Mr. Kimmel’s use of the term U.F.O., which some view as loaded and rooted more in science fiction than in science, as a breakthrough because it “suggested she’d been briefed by someone and is not just being flippant,” Mr. Buchman said.

Finish the article here .

Dr. Joe Buchman is running for Utah State Senate District 14. The emphasis on his name is by me.