Take Me to Your Leaders

At the opening of the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Stilll, the alien had the common decency to plop right down on the Capital Mall and make himself known. OK, he got shot for his effort, but it was a nice enough of a straight forward gesture.

But in reality, these critters from so far away just don't seem very interested in making such a grandstanding stunt. Not once have they popped up at noon in front of the White House demanding a photo op with any of our elected officials. Heck, the only world leader known to have even gotten close to an alien was Richard Nixon (or at least according to the Jackie Gleeson story)and that was only a dead one. Otherwise, our outlandish visitors seem quite disinterested in dealing with representatives of our ruling class.

Of course the history of many modern presidents has been laced with UFOs. Harry S. Truman ordered them to be shot down. Jimmy Carter spotted one. Ronald Reagan chased them. But only Tricky Dicky had hands-on experience.

Or at least until now. In a recent BBC news report, the president of Russia has been asked to personally investigate the claim by a regional president that he has been in contact with aliens. This claim by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the leader of the southern region of Kalmykia, was made during a TV interview and has provoked concern about both his sanity and, just on the off chance that this is real, what exactly is the government protocol for dealing with it.

OK, by all account Ilyumzhinov is a tad eccentric. He appears to have an interest in being a Buddhist styled dictator who believes that he is able to influence people through ESP and has a couple of aides who were convicted of murdering one of his political opponents (not that he knew anything about it - guess the ESP was off that night). So his bio is just weird enough to suggest that alien contact is pretty normal for this guy.

But the totally weird thing is that he is not the only one. In some strange way, the world of alien encounter is creeping into the mainstream political culture and it is a global event. Not that long ago Miyuki Hatoyama, the wife of the current prime minister of Japan confided to the press about her ride to Venus with her alien friends. Though her story sounds like a retread of George Adamski, she is quite serious and her husband seems to support her belief.

Then there is Fife Symington, the former governor of Arizona. During the Phoenix Lights sightings in 1997, Symington staged a press conference primarily to make fun of the numerous UFO sightings. Ten years later, he came public with his own sightings at the time and become quite upfront that there was something from another planet whizzing over Arizona that night. Of course, with Arizona's current laws, I doubt if they will ever want to try landing.

The list goes on. It is almost like a fad. It is also extremely interesting. It doesn't matter if the various stories are either real or phony, the concept of alien encounter is making a slow but steady creep into high office. It is almost as if we have gone beyond disclosure without any disclosing along the way. It is simply becoming a given.

So it may be fair to ask: When Obama talks about illegal aliens, which kind is he talking about?