Before he became the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter put his own UFO sighting on the record. The signed report is preserved in the Hayden C. Hewes Archive.
On September 18, 1973, Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter signed a UFO sighting report for the International UFO Bureau.
Four years later, he would become president of the United States. His report placed him in a unique position in American history as the first U.S. president known to have formally reported a UFO sighting.
The National Archives now includes Carter’s 1973 report among the UFO and UAP records held by the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.
The International UFO Bureau preserves its own record of the case in the Hayden C. Hewes Archive, including correspondence with Carter, his handwritten report, news coverage, and later research into what he may have seen.
A Governor Puts His Sighting in Writing
Hayden C. Hewes wrote to Carter on September 14, 1973, asking him to provide details about an unusual light he had seen several years earlier near Leary, Georgia.
Carter responded four days later.
In his handwritten report, he described a bright, silent object visible for about 10 to 12 minutes. He said its color appeared to shift from blue to red. It seemed to move closer, then farther away. Carter listed ten members of the Leary Lions Club as other witnesses.
There were no photographs.
There was, however, a signed report from a sitting governor describing an object he could not identify.
From the Governor’s Office to the White House
Carter continued to speak about the sighting as he entered national politics.
During the 1976 presidential campaign, Carter said he supported making government information about UFO sightings available to the public and to scientists. His comments brought the question of government UFO records into a presidential campaign.
His interest did not disappear after the election.
In 1977, Carter’s science adviser, Dr. Frank Press, asked NASA Administrator Robert Frosch to consider whether new findings justified another review of UFO reports. NASA later concluded that it did not have enough evidence to establish a new research program.
The record is significant because a man who had personally reported an unexplained sighting later reached the presidency and had the authority to ask federal agencies what they knew.
The Investigation Continued
The Bureau’s file did not end with Carter’s account.
Carter originally placed the sighting in October 1969. Researcher Robert Sheaffer later traced the Lions Club meeting to January 6, 1969. Based on that date, the reported direction of the object, and astronomical conditions, Sheaffer proposed that Carter had seen Venus.
Hewes preserved that finding with the rest of the case.
Efforts to locate other witnesses produced limited results. One Lions Club member recalled watching a light with Carter, although his memory of the event was faint.
Those limits are part of the file as well.
The archive preserves the original report, the later investigation, and the questions that remained.
A Question That Reached Beyond One Sighting
Carter’s case became part of a larger question that remains active today: how much government information about UFOs and UAP should be available for public research?
That question now has a formal place in federal law.
The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act directed the National Archives to establish an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection. Federal agencies were required to identify UAP records in their custody and prepare them for transfer and public disclosure, subject to permitted national security and privacy restrictions. The National Archives continues to add records to that collection as agencies transfer them.
The process taking place today has roots that reach back decades.
Jimmy Carter was asking questions about access to UFO records nearly half a century ago.
The Bureau Has the Documents
The Hayden C. Hewes Archive preserves the International UFO Bureau’s part of that history.
The original correspondence.
Carter’s handwritten and signed report.
The Bureau’s coverage of the case.
The later investigation.
Together, these records allow researchers and the public to follow the case from Carter’s own account through later attempts to explain what he saw.
They also show why preserving original records matters. Historical questions can be revisited when the documents survive.
Explore the Jimmy Carter Featured File in the Hayden C. Hewes Archive and read the record for yourself.