Daymond Steer, a journalist for a local New Hampshire newspaper, keeps asking politicians and presidential hopefuls about UFOs, and it is the best thing ever.
By hosting informal, video recorded Q&A sessions, the Conway Daily Sun has had a lot of politicians vying for the presidency stop by its office. With New Hampshire’s primary being held on February 11, the state is a key player in the success of most Democratic candidates. The interview sessions run about an hour, and Steer, who usually covers politics and crime, waits until the last moment to sneak in the big question on his mind outside of healthcare and education: UFOs.
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“I’ve always been curious about UFOs,” Steer told Motherboard in an interview. “The first time I asked the question was back in the 2008 primary cycle when I was working for the Cabinet Press. Hillary Clinton came to the Cabinet Press office for an editorial board meeting and the question popped into my head. I figured she might know something about UFOs since she was a former First Lady.”
Steer made waves in 2016 when he asked Hillary Clinton again about UFOs. Clinton told the Conway Daily Sun, “I’m going to get to the bottom of it. I think we may have been [visited already]. We don’t know for sure.”
“Honestly, I probably would have retired the question in 2016 but then the David Fravor story came along in December of 2017. Turns out, Fravor is from New Hampshire. When I realized that, it felt like I had a mandate from the universe to keep asking about UFOs,” Steer jokingly stated.
Fravor, a retired US Navy pilot, reported an encounter, alongside other pilots, with a Tic-Tac shaped object in November 2004 off the California coast. His testimony, as well as information regarding a secretive Pentagon UFO program, broke the internet in late 2017.
While Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren dodged Steer’s Ufological questioning, the other candidates provided their thoughts on the UFO issue.
Roughly 42 minutes in, Bernie Sanders exclaimed to the reporters, “Let’s not jump the gun here!” when asked about the UFO mystery and whether the Nimitz object was using green energy technology. While Sanders did jokingly state that “his wife would never forgive” him if he didn’t look into the UFO question, he did state that looking into the Nimitz case, “if true,” should be considered.
In response to Steer’s questioning regarding UFOs and the Nimitz case, Mayor Pete Buttigieg said that “strange things happen out there” and while he admits that life most likely does exist elsewhere in the universe, he hasn’t really seen enough evidence that suggests it is visiting Earth.
“As a curious species, [we] should always be looking at what’s going on around us,” Buttigieg philosophically remarks towards the end of the video. “Unimaginably strange things often happened in the grand sweep of American and world history and we should never fail to be on the lookout for what’s happening around us.”
Amy Klobuchar, when asked by Steer about the Nimitz Tic-Tac, stated “I’ve read some articles about it. And, you know, I think we don’t know enough…And, I think one of the things a president could do is to look into what’s there. What does the science say? What does the military say? Here’s the interesting part of that answer, is that some of the stuff is really old, these sightings. So, why can’t you see if you can let some of that out for the public so that earnest journalists like you, who are trying to get to the bottom of the truth, would be able to see it?”
Republican candidate William Weld remarked that he believes extraterrestrial life exists and that it is probably “more intelligent.”
“In my opinion, the most interesting answers came from [Democratic senator] Michael Bennet and [former governor of Massachusetts] Deval Patrick,” Steer told Motherboard. “There’s no right or wrong answer to my question. I think it helps reveal a little bit of the candidates’ personalities because it’s not something they are typically asked.
“I feel like UFOs could be one of the greatest news stories of our time and I want a piece of it”
Bennet confirmed that he read news stories about UFOs and knew about the subject. “He gave a serious answer but also stressed he had to be careful about what he said because of his role on the intelligence committee. His statement that ‘Our guys are seeing unidentifiable stuff’ seems pretty important and should be raising a lot of eyebrows,” Steer said.
Patrick, who served on the board of United Airlines, revealed to the reporters that he’s spoken to many pilots who made reports about strange things they’ve seen in the sky.
While more mainstream coverage of UFOs continues to bombard the internet and cable news channels, the UFO community is far from a unified voting bloc. No data exists which clearly indicates which side of the aisle UFO people tend to fall on. That being said, politics is undoubtedly baked into many Ufology circles, and many right-wing conspiracists who are into both UFOs and QAnon deem President Donald Trump to be some sort of messianic figure ready to save America from various secret evil cabals. Combine that with weird conspiracies concerning ancient alien astronauts and alternative history, which is often the fare of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, and the seedy underbelly of some UFO groups begin to indicate a clear political, and often racial, position.
For Steer, his questions are less about politics and more about the strange and seemingly more legitimate possibility that this UFO stuff actually matters.
“I’ve never seen a UFO or an alien,” Steer said. “UFOs have always fascinated me and because of the revelations from the Nimitz case, I feel like UFOs could be one of the greatest news stories of our time and I want a piece of it.”
