When Hillary Clinton takes the podium at the final presidential debate on Wednesday night, at least one outspoken UFO activist hopes that moderator and Fox News anchor Chris Wallace will ask the Democratic nominee a question about her interest in unidentified flying objects, extraterrestrials and other mysterious matters.
“It would be historic,” said Stephen Bassett, a registered lobbyist and ET researcher in the nation’s capital who has already assembled a list of possible questions.
There is plenty of curiosity out there.
A few UFO references have already turned up in the series of Clinton administration emails made public last week by WikiLeaks. In recent months, hundreds of stories from major news organizations including The New York Times, The Times of London, NBC and the Boston Globe have chronicled Mrs. Clinton’s interest in extraterrestrial affairs and her on-the record promise earlier this year to address the issue. In a conversation with the Conway Daily Sun, a New Hampshire paper, Mrs. Clinton vowed in January that she would “get to the bottom” of the UFO question and even suggested otherworldly ETs had already paid a call.
“I think we may already have been visited. We don’t know for sure,” she said at the time, and also suggested a future task force could be assembled to investigate Area 51. The press took to calling Mrs. Clinton the “ET candidate” and took notice of the fact that former President Bill Clinton, longtime adviser John Podesta and even President Obama have briefly alluded to UFOs and extraterrestrials in a series of TV appearances, and via social media.
Journalists also began tracing Mrs. Clinton’s interest in the topic, which began with her personal meeting 21 years ago with billionaire Laurance S. Rockefeller, who had long urged U.S. leaders to disclose some facts about the reported crash of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
Mr. Bassett, meanwhile, has a wish-list of questions he’d like answered during the debate.
“What might Mr. Wallace ask of Secretary Clinton? I suggest these: Why have you, your husband and your campaign chairman been speaking repeatedly about the extraterrestrial subject since 2002? Do you believe the Pentagon is hiding the truth from the American people?” Mr. Bassett said.
And he has a follow-up.
“From 1993 to 1996, why did you and your husband address Laurance Rockefeller’s effort to get all government-held UFO files released and grant amnesty for witnesses that might come forward? Why did that effort fail? Was President Clinton denied access? If so, is that not a constitutional breach?”
Whether the UFO subject comes up or not, the 90-minute debate itself begins at 9 p.m. on multiple broadcast outlets, with a potential audience of 65 million to 80 million viewers.
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.
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