The role of UFOs in the 2008 US election

Forget the Iraq war, rampant government spending or corruption on Capitol Hill. The latest big issue in the 2008 election has become whether candidates believe in Unidentified Flying Objects and a US government conspiracy to deny their existence.

UK Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news

Dennis Kucinich, an outside contender for the Democratic nomination, delighted aficionados of the extra-terrestrial when he said during a recent televised debate that he had seen an alien craft. He then ventured that “more people in this country have seen UFOs than, I think, approve of George Bush's presidency".

Roswell: the UFO Museum and Research Center, left, and local shops, centre and right More pictures

He had been asked about his close encounter with a triangular spaceship over Washington state during which, according to his friend actress Shirley MacLaine, Mr Kucinich had “felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind”.

Mr Kucinich joked that he wanted to open a campaign headquarters in Roswell, New Mexico, where UFO researchers believe a flying saucer crashed in July 1947.

They claim this was covered up by the US government, which stated that a top secret research balloon had come down.

An alien prop used in the 1994 film Roswell at the UFO Museum and Research Center

After Mr Kucinich’s statement, Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico and fourth in the Democratic presidential stakes, called on the US government to “come clean" over the Roswell incident and disclose “everything it knows".

In Roswell, a dusty south-western town surrounded by an arid expanse of nothingness, pilgrims visiting the centre of the UFO universe applauded the two Democrats for highlighting the issue of other life forms landing on earth.

“Dennis Kucinich has said a lot of things I like and I believe him to be an honest man,” said Delbert Slaughter from Ben Lomond, California, a retired electrician who was visiting Roswell as part of an 8,000-mile trip across America with his wife Nadja.

“If we can go to the moon then why can’t aliens come here?”

Chuck Johnson, 45, from Pensacola, Florida, said he had once seen a green ball glowing in the sky but remained a UFO sceptic.

“But who knows? God’s a big God and I can’t say we’re the only people He ever made.”

Although Mr Kucinich has been widely ridiculed for his UFO account, there is a long history of US presidents at least toying with the idea that aliens had come to the United States.

Ronald Reagan believed he saw UFOs at least twice, once while driving to Hollywood with his wife Nancy and once as governor of California while on a plane over his state.

Jimmy Carter filed a report with the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City when he was Georgia governor claiming that he’d seen a UFO.

Although he stated recently that he had “never thought there were extra terrestrial beings on a ship from outer space”, he maintained that what he’d seen “was unidentified, it was flying and it was an object”.

At the International UFO Museum in Roswell, Herman James, 68, a former Vietnam war fighter pilot who has worked there for 14 years, said it was high time a US president accepted there were UFOs.

“I was flying my Cessna near here in 1967 and on my right wing tip was an object shaped like a diamond. After about 15 minutes it went straight up and disappeared.

“It would be nice if a president would accept the evidence and tell the military to cut the crap and give us the facts.

“Probably the biggest reason the whole thing has been covered up is that there are a lot of religious fanatics here who don’t believe in UFOs, which is strange because they’re mentioned in the bible – in Ezekiel, they’re referred to as chariots of fire.”

Some Roswell residents said that they weren’t sure aliens had landed nearby but suspected a nefarious cover-up by the US government of a secret project that might have involved contacts with beings from outer space.

“I’m not saying there were little green men but the government has certainly been hiding something for all these years,” said Sandra Moore, 57, who works at the Alien Zone store, part of the town’s large UFO industry.

“The government’s lied to us so many times on so many different things that I don’t trust them. UFOs don’t threaten us but right now the politicians are scaring the heck out of me.”