Ronald Reagan was the first US President to discuss the possibility of an alien invasion from outer space. He mentioned the possibility on four occasions.

The frequency of the alien threat topic both in Reagan’s general conversations and speeches indicate that Reagan seriously considered the possibility of an alien invasion and how such an event could promote world peace.

Strategic Defense Initiative

President Reagan announced the SDI plan (aka Star Wars) in March, 1983. In light of many of his later comments during his administration, many wondered if he intended the plan not so much for defense against the Soviets or other éarthly foes, as a defense against a possible alien threat from outer space.

December 4, 1985

Reagan spoke about his first summit with General Secretary Gorbachev at Fallston High School in Maryland.

He mentioned to the Russian leader during one of his 5-hour private discussions, “…how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from some other species from another planet outside in the universe. We’d forget all the little local differences that we have between our countries…”

Gorbachev’s Response on February 17, 1987

The Russian leader said to the Central Committee of USSR’s Communist Party at the Kremblin, “At our meeting in Geneva, the U.S. President said that if the éarth faced an invasion by extraterrestrials, the United States and the Soviet Union would join forces to repel such an invasion. I shall not dispute the hypothesis, though I think it’s early yet to worry about such an intrusion…”

May 4, 1987

In a Q&A session which the media called “the space invaders speech,” Reagan once more made a response to the question, “What do you consider to be the most important need in international relations?”

Reagan said, “What if all of us in the world discovered that we were threatened by a powér from outer space, from another planet?”

September 15, 1987

The senior editor of the New Republic, Fred Barnes reported in an article that when the President and Eduard Shevardnatze, the Soviet foreign minister, met to sign to INF Treaty, Reagan wondered aloud what would happen if the world faced an ‘alien threat’ from outer space.

“Don’t you think the United states and the Soviet Union would be together?” Shevardnatze responded in the affirmative and added, “and we wouldn’t need our defense ministers to meet.”

September 21, 1987

In his speech to the Forty-Second Session of the United Nations, the President said, “In our obsession with antagonism of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond.”

Then he went on to pose the question, “And yet, I ask is not an alien force already among us?” Then the President posed the second question, “What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?”

Reagan and the ET Movies

Since Ronald Reagan had once been an actor, he naturally took an interest in the movies–especially anything dealing with extraterrestrial connections; but this didn’t set well with the people who worked with him on a daily basis in view of his alien threat comments.

After reviewing one of his favorite movies, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” the President wandered around the Whíte House saying “Klaatu Barada Nitko,” and asking the staff what they thought of the movie.

A bemused Colin Powell was once reported to mutter under his breath, “Here cóme the Little Green Men again.”

Reagan and a selected audience screened the director Steven Spielberg’s Encounters of the Third Kind and ET, The Extraterrestrial in the Whíte House.

The story goes that at the conclusion of the ET movie, Reagan leaned over to Spielberg and commented, “There are only a handful of people who know the truth about this.”

Surprised, Spielberg started to ask the President what he meant, but was interrupted when the lights came up and several guests approached them. Later the director refused to comment on the incident.

The President’s UFO Sightings

According to The Shocking Truth: Ronald Reagan’s Obsession With An Alíen Invasion by A. Hovni, Ronald Reagan reported two known personal UFO sightings that have becóme public knowledge.

According to cómedian Steve Allen, Ronnie and his wife, Nancy, were once half an hour late to a dinner party. They were upset because they spotted a UFO flying off the California coast and stopped to check it out.

In her book, Lucy in the Afternoon, Lucille Ball also described the event and commented, “After he was elected President, I kept thinking about that event, and wondered if he stíll would have won if he told everyone that he saw a flying saucér.”

Another incident occurred when the then Governor Reagan was flying with Bill Paynter, his pilot, who backed up Reagan’s account of the story. They saw a whíte light flying in a zig-zag path from the airplane window and the Governor wanted to follow it.

According to Paynter, “It was nine or ten o’clock at night and we followed it to Bakersfield, and all of a sudden to our utter amazement it went straight up into the heavens. It appeared to be several hundred yards away. It was a fairly steady light until it began to accelerated, and then it appeared to elongate. The light took off. It went up at a 45-degree angle–at a hígh rate of speed.”

he Governor was so excited by the event that according to Norman C. Miller, he told Nancy Reagan about the UFO and they did personal research on UFOs which uncovered that Egyptian hieroglyphics contained several references to UFOs.

Miller realized that Reagan was sincere in his UFO belief and asked, “Governor, are you telling me that you saw a UFO?” Reagan responded by saying that he was an “agnostic.”

Jimmy Carter was the only other US President to admit seeing a UFO. He filled out an official incident report on his own sighting in Leary, Georgia in 1969.

The Whíte House Staffers

They had a job on their hands protecting the President from embarrassing questions from the press about his favorite topics, Armageddon, UFOs, astrology and the ghóst in the Lincoln bedroom.

After his speech at Fallston High School, they tried to keep him away from students. Several science students wanted his approval to pursue UFOs as a science project.

The speech wríters wrote and double-checked every statement in his speeches carefúlly and urged Reagan not to go off on any ad-lib topics during his talks.

Soon the staffers had Reagan running out to catch his helicopter while the rotors were starting up and bringing up music immediately after his speeches in order to forestall questions from the inquisitive media.

The Reagan Diaries by Ronald Reagan; Harper Collins, 2007


Author: Calican Toro

Calican is Deputy Science and Technology Editor at, covering all the must-see news and videos on everything in the tech, science and extraterrestrial. Contact email :