(Insert UFO joke here...)
You guys are so nice.
Just a little info.
Ronald Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis described her father as "fascinated with stories about unidentified flying objects and the possibility of life on other worlds." She compared the "madness" of her father’s inauguration day to "a fifty’s movie in which flying saucers descend on the metropolis."
Reagan may have gained this intense interest from sightings he had while he was Governor of California. Kitty Kelly in her Unauthorized Biography of Nancy Reagan stated Reagan admitted to believing in flying saucers, and "even swore that he had seen a few unidentified flying objects."
Two of these Reagan UFO encounters have become public. The first sighting story was made public by Steve Allen on his WNEW-AM radio show in New York. Allen stated that a well know personality in the entertainment industry had confided a UFO story to him many years before. As the story had already made the rounds in the rumor mill, there was no question the comedian and host was referring to Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy.
Ron and Nancy were expected at a casual dinner party with friends in Hollywood. Except for the Reagans, all the guests had arrived. Ron and Nancy showed up a half hour later quite upset. They stated that they had seen a UFO coming down the coast.
Lucille Ball in her book "Lucy in the Afternoon" also described the event. In her account of the event she stated, “After he elected President, I kept thinking about that event, and wondered if he still would have won if he told everyone that he saw a flying saucer.”
The second sighting occurred in 1974 while Reagan was still Governor. One week after the sighting, Reagan related the story to Norman C. Millar, then Washington Bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, later the editor of the Los Angeles Times. Reagan told Millar:
"I was in a plane last week when I looked out the window and saw this white light. It was zigzagging around. I went up to the pilot and said, ‘Have you seen anything like that before?’ He was shocked and said, ‘Nope.’ And I said to him: ‘Let’s follow it!’
We followed it for several minutes. It was a bright white light. We followed it to Bakersfield, and all of a sudden to our utter amazement it went straight up into the heavens. When we got off the plane, I told Nancy all about it.’
The pilot of Governor Reagan plane was Bill Paynter, and he backed up Reagan’s version of the incident with the UFO.
I was the pilot of the plane when we saw the UFO. Also, on board were Governor Reagan and a couple of his security people. We were flying a Cessna Citation. It was maybe nine or ten o’clock at night. We were near Bakersfield when Governor Reagan and the others called my attention to a big light flying a bit behind the plane.
It appeared to be several hundred yards away. It was a fairly steady light until it began to accelerate, then it appeared to elongate. The light took off. It went up at a 45-degree angle - at a high rate of speed. Everyone on the plane was surprised.
Governor Reagan expressed amazement. I told the others I didn’t know what it was. The UFO went from a normal cruise speed to a fantastic speed instantly. If you give an airplane power it will accelerate - but not like a hotrod, and that is what this was like.
We didn’t file a report on the object because for a long time they considered you a nut if you saw a UFO.
Paynter added the UFO incident didn’t stop there. He stated that he and Reagan had discussed their UFO sighting "from time to time" in the years following the incident.
Reagan, in his discussion of the sighting with Norman C. Miller added that he had told Nancy about the UFO he had seen, and they had done personal research on UFOs. This research had uncovered the facts that there were references to UFOs in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Reagan was telling his story in a very animated way.
