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Reagan and the Extraterrestrial Secret

There’s no shortage of conspiracy theories involving Ronald Reagan and alien life. There’s his famous U.N. speech about how an alien threat would bring humanity together, and also the story about his personal screening of Steven Spielberg’s E.T., and his alleged mention of how close to reality the story was. Spielberg recently spoke to Quint at Ain’t It Cool, mainly on the topic of Jaws, but he also was asked about this latter rumour. Spielberg notes that he was actually there at the time, and, as an eye-witness, gave his thoughts on Reagan’s comment: in short, he’s pretty sure it was just a deadpan joke.

Quint: Now, I’ve heard a story that I wanted to run by you. I have no idea if it’s true, but an effects friend of mine told me about a special screening of E.T. for Ronald Reagan. Have you heard this story?

Steven Spielberg: I was there!

Quint: The story I heard is that when Reagan saw it he started talking about how close to reality it was and he was quickly ushered out of the room. Is that true?

Steven Spielberg: No, he wasn’t ushered out of the room. He was the President of the United States! Nobody could usher Ronald Reagan out of the room! It was in the White House screening room and Reagan got up to thank me for bringing the film to show the President, the First Lady and all of their guests, which included Sandra Day O’Connor in her first week of as a Justice of the Supreme Court, and it included some astronauts… I think Neil Armstrong was there, I’m not 100% certain, but it was an amazing, amazing evening.

He just stood up and he looked around the room, almost like he was doing a headcount, and he said, “I wanted to thank you for bringing E.T. to the White House. We really enjoyed your movie,” and then he looked around the room and said, “And there are a number of people in this room who know that everything on that screen is absolutely true.”

And he said it without smiling! But he said that and everybody laughed, by the way. The whole room laughed because he presented it like a joke, but he wasn’t smiling as he said it…

Quint: So, do you think he actually let something slip there?

Steven Spielberg: I don’t think he let something slip there, no. I think he delivered a joke without smiling, without a little bit of a twinkle behind the joke. I think the joke landed because everybody laughed, but because I’m a little bit of a Ufologist I was hoping that there was something more to the joke than met my eye. I’m sorry to say I think he was simply trying to tell a joke.

For the truly conspiracy-minded, you can also listen to an audio clip of the above exchange, just so you know exactly what Spielberg said…

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  1. from When-the-Stars-Are-Right-Dept.
    What does anyone think of the idear that why the world ‘guvmnts’ have been keeping the UFO ‘thang’ a seekrit is that…the less true knowledge aboot the phenomenon there is, the less danger the phenomenon is?

    1. P’tooey!
      [quote=Inannawhimsey]What does anyone think of the idear that why the world ‘guvmnts’ have been keeping the UFO ‘thang’ a seekrit is that…the less true knowledge aboot the phenomenon there is, the less danger the phenomenon is?[/quote]

      Grasping from the best available stories, I’d venture that Prez’dent Truman began the thing with MJ12 and then General/President Eisenhower logged at least one meeting with at least two different species of star critters. He settled on an agreement that traded American citizens for abduction and biological dipping for some advanced alien technology that never really did us a whole lot of good. At least, in those fields we most wanted them for.

      Anyway, you can imagine the public reaction should any of this both prove to be true and then be released in some official way!

      Shoot fire and sh*t bricks! It would be almost as bad as an admission that the CIA snuffed old JFK or that 9.11 was the best staged program since Paul McCartney’s untimely death was leaked out by snapping bass guitar strings over Ringo’s snare drums, and played in reverse whilst sung to the tune of Danny Boy!

      But hey… you know what? I think we CAN stand the truth. The problem is that you might as well wish in one hand for that truth and then spit into the other to see which fills up fastest.

      Now, that’s not to say/admit/confess that I buy this or any other scenario, but it does have enough advantages to make it better than the Plan 9 types for conversations such as this.

      Besides all that, Elvis’ Mars ranch has just been eyeballed by Google. There won’t be no sleep in Memphis for the next month or so…

  2. Reagan was of course one of
    Reagan was of course one of the prime instigators of Star Wars which mentality reached it absolute nadir when Bush secretly funneled money to the Soviets so they could keep their ICBM project humming along so that we could justify enormous defense spending counter measures over here. It hardly mattered what sort of enemy could be conjured up to keep the military/industrial complex sated with taxpayer cash. Lots of folks think the next Al Quaeda will be faux aliens tooling around in our most black and advanced craft stirring up trouble and masquerading as the enemy so as to keep fear and defence budgets first and foremost in everybody’s minds. Reagan was just idly fantasizing about the “next big thing.” Werner Von Braun repeatedly warned us that there would be a fake alien invasion in our future.

  3. Ronald Reagan: UFO witness
    we should also have in mind the fact that Reagan saw UFOs at least twice: first (while he was still governor of California) with his wife Nancy. And the second time when he was aboard a plane —he even coaxed the pilot to try to follow the object. For more about it, go to Grant Cameron’s website.

    There’s this idea (very plausible IMO) that *some* presidents get briefed about the general aspects of the UFO problem, and some don’t. Richard Dolan has written on several occasions that some government insiders have confirmed the fact that Reagan was briefed.

    What do they tell them? probably the bare minimum, and the assurance that there are people working on the problem, and so far have it under control.

    It’s nice to see Spielberg has at least confirmed the rumor, even though he went for the tangential escape route of personal opinion.

    The most interesting thing to think about, is the ramifications: just how much of what is presented in that movie did Reagan consider to be close to reality? the fact that there are alien intelligences visiting Earth at the most? or the fact that there are government agencies involved in trying to capture one of those entities?

  4. It seems clear the government
    It seems clear the government capitalizes on all current threats to justify military spending just as global warming fears justify all types of spending, etc… All politicians have their corporate interests they are beholden too on both sides of the isle.

    That being said, Reagan’s star wars program was not sold to America on defending against aliens, it was sold on defending against nuclear missiles – whether plausible or not. Reagan likely had information on the phenomena and shared it as best he could – love him or hate him, I believe he loved this country and truly tried to benefit it and it’s people according to his beliefs which were vehemently loathed by many.

    Alien intelligence visiting this planet are likely either interdimensional or have technology that allows them to travel the vast distances of space interdimensionally rather than linearly like rocket technology – hence the ephemeral nature of the phenomena. It’s just a shame there is so much hoaxed material that drowns the whole subject in illegitimacy.

  5. The alien invasion meme was
    The alien invasion meme was common among Republican power people of the time. Kissinger used to invoke the specter of some spooky invading force being used as a pretext for expanding the military/industrial complex and causing people to cede thir civil liberties in the name of security. It is likely that Reagan was just parroting a Republican wet dream of that time. Of course, the later Neocons would see their fondest wishes granted with the false flag attack of 911 which created “Al Queda” as the invading alien force. It little matters what exactly the invading force is so long a it can be portrayed as just out of reach and uncatchable. The phony bin Laden spectacle we just saw was simply a last bit of juice being squeezed out of a tired and worn out boogabear. Don’t worry – we soon will be given another to replace it.

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