Spielberg and the Carter Administration (and N.A.S.A)
"I really found my faith when I heard that the
Government was opposed to the film. (Close Encounters) If NASA took
the time to write me a 20-page letter, then I knew there must be something
happening. I had wanted cooperation from them, but when they read the script
they got very angry and felt that it was a film that would be dangerous.
I felt they mainly wrote the letter because JAWS convinced so many people
around the world that there were sharks in toilets and bathtubs, not just
in the oceans and rivers. They were afraid the same kind of epidemic would
happen with UFOs."
>Steven Spielberg<
Spielberg and his wife were invited to London to screen
the film for Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip. Philip had long
expressed open interest in UFOs. He had been a long-time subscriber to Flying
Saucer Review, the most popular UFO journal in Britain.
Spielberg had a fascination with UFOs, even though he
had never seen one. He liked to tell people that he was born in 1947, even
though an investigation by the Los Angeles Times discovered he was actually
born in December, 1946. Spielberg used the 1947 date, because, as he used
to tell people, it was the same year as the first major UFO sighting, and
the same year as the famous Roswell crash of an alien ship.
NASA declined the offer to reopen the UFO can of worms
(When President Jimmy Carter asked) and Carter's Science Advisor was told
this. Meanwhile, however, behind the scenes, NASA was busy. While they claimed
to having no role in investigating UFOs, Had no knowledge of UFO's, and
at the same time they were telling President Carter they wanted no part
of the UFO scene, they had written a 20 page letter
to Spielberg trying to talk him out of releasing the movie Close Encounters
of the Third Kind.
The UFO President
President Jimmy Carter has often been referred-to as
the "UFO President" due to the fact that he publicly claimed to
have had a UFO sighting prior to becoming president. Moreover, he was the
only president on record to actually file a UFO sighting report related
to his sighting. Thirdly, on at least one occasion while campaigning for
president, Carter declared that, if elected, he would "make every piece
of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public
and scientists."
