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HOME/CASES/DUFO-052 · JIMMY CARTER SIGHTING
FILE OPENEDTIER B · CLASS — DECLASSIFIED
DUFO-052 · DOSSIER · 2026 EDITION
FILE DUFO-052·FIELD REPORT·USA·FILED 01.06.1969·UPDATED 05.06.2026
CASE FILE

JIMMY.

Leary, GA · USA · Future President Jimmy Carter, then a Georgia state senator, observed and reported a luminous object that changed colour and size over Leary, Georgia in January 1969 — the only reported UFO sighting by a sitting US president.
declassifiedtier · BFILE COPY · 52 / 64
archive · sighting · 1969
EXHIBIT A · 01 / 06
“primary witness on record” — Jimmy Carter
DEBRIS
PRESS
MAP
WITNESSES
GOV DOCS
MEDIA
// SUMMARY · BY THE DESK

On the evening of January 6, 1969, Georgia state senator Jimmy Carter was waiting outside the Lions Club in Leary, Georgia, where he was scheduled to give a speech, when he and approximately a dozen other waiting club members observed a luminous object in the western sky.

In September 1973, while serving as Governor of Georgia, Carter filed a formal sighting report with the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City. The report, in his own handwriting, gave specific details about the event including the date, location, weather, time, and his own characterization of the object as a UFO. He noted in the report that "the object hovered about 30 degrees above the horizon and moved in toward the earth and away before disappearing into the distance."

During the 1976 presidential campaign, Carter discussed the sighting publicly and stated that, if elected, he would make all UFO information held by the US government available to the public. After taking office, Carter requested NASA to lead a US government UFO study. NASA Administrator Robert Frosch declined to commit the agency to such a project in a 1977 letter. Carter has stated in subsequent interviews that he did not personally see further information after taking office and that he believed his sighting was a natural phenomenon — likely the planet Venus — though he allowed that conditions had been unusual.

Skeptical analyses, including by Robert Sheaffer, have proposed that the object was indeed Venus, which was bright in the western sky on the relevant evening. Pro-case analysts have noted that Carter's description of size and colour change is not fully consistent with Venus, and that multiple Lions Club members corroborated the observation. The Carter sighting is significant primarily as the only formally filed sighting report by a future or sitting US President.

// CHRONOLOGY · KEY EVENTS
Jan 6 1969
Incident reported · primary record
1970
First independent investigation
2023
Senate UAP testimony reopens record
May 2026
Spielberg release · disclosure cycle
// WITNESSES · 2 ON RECORD
portrait
Jimmy Carter
ON RECORD
▸ AFFIDAVIT →
portrait
Approximately 10 Leary Lions Club members
ON RECORD
▸ AFFIDAVIT →
// PRIMARY DOCUMENTS
International UFO Bureau — Carter sighting report (filed September 1973)▸ ARCHIVE
Robert Sheaffer — The UFO Verdict (1981)▸ ARCHIVE
Carter Presidential Library — UFO correspondence files▸ ARCHIVE
Atlanta Journal-Constitution contemporaneous reporting (1973–1976)▸ ARCHIVE
FILE DUFO-052 · JIMMY CARTER SIGHTING · DECLASSIFIED EDITION 2026PG 01 / 04
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