Alien enthusiasts think Hillary could blow open Washington’s biggest cover-up. —By AJ Vicens | Fri Apr. 3, 2015 6:00 AM EDT Illustration by Ivylise Simones; Clinton: Brian Cahn/Zuma; UFO: Fer Gregory/Shutterstock Stephen Bassett is ready for Hillary. Bassett, Capitol Hill’s only registered UFO lobbyist, anticipates that another Clinton presidency will offer another shot at what’s long been the Holy Grail for extraterrestrial enthusiasts: full disclosure of what the US government really knows about aliens. “This is the most important issue in the world,” he says. His enthusiasm is shared by Michael Salla, an academic turned UFO researcher who maintains that aliens have been secretly involved in American politics since the Cold War. He thinks a Clinton presidency would be a good thing for the UFO community. “I think Hillary would play a positive role in getting this information out,” he says. “I think that Hillary definitely is much more the pro-disclosure candidate, where as someone like Jeb Bush is basically status quo.” Hillary’s alien baby and other out-of-this world tabloid tales The UFO activists’ hopes for Hillary are pinned on the assumption she believes in their cause—despite having never spoken publicly about it. In particular, they are encouraged that John Podesta, Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, will likely chair Clinton’s campaign and would likely serve in another Clinton White House. As a self-described “curious skeptic,” Podesta has openly called for greater government transparency on UFO-related matters. In his forward to UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record, a 2011 book by journalist Leslie Kean, he wrote, “It’s time to find out what the truth really is that’s out there. The American people—and people around the world—want to know, and they can handle the truth.” Podesta’s interest in extraterrestrial phenomenon is nothing new. In 1998, theWashington Post described his “fanatical devotion to ‘The X-Files’—especially FBI agent Fox Mulder, with whom he shares a penchant for obsessiveness and paranoia.” Grant Cameron, a Canadian UFO researcher, unsuccessfully tried to get the Clinton Library to release records detailing Podesta’s X-Files-themed 50th birthday party, which was apparently thrown by the first couple—who may have dressed up as the show’s main characters. In February, as he prepared to step down as a senior adviser to President Obama, Podesta tweeted about the UFO issue: While the tweet may have been tongue in cheek, UFO activists went nuts over it. “It was a big frickin’ deal,” says Bassett. “Someone who has been an adviser to the president of the United States, and is leaving his job, and it’s already been announced publicly that he is going to be a key adviser to the heir apparent to the White House, the de facto candidate, does not, on the day he leaves the White House, put out a tweet about UFOs. He’s inviting hundreds of articles to be written about this tweet.” Podesta did not respond to a request for comment. The other reason that UFO enthusiasts are excited about a potential Clinton victory goes back to the X-Files era. In early 1993, Laurance S. Rockefeller began to lobby the Clinton administration to release any government information related to UFOs and extraterrestrials, including the 1947 Roswell incident. The fourth child of John D. Rockefeller Jr., Rockefeller was a successful venture capitalist, philanthropist, and conservationist. One of…
