Jimmy Carter's Leary sighting

Jimmy Carter, then a Lions Club district governor, and about ten to twenty people outside a school lunchroom in Leary watched a bright light in the western sky after sunset that changed colour and seemed to approach, stop and recede over ten to twelve minutes. Carter filed a report with the International UFO Bureau in 1973 as governor, dating it October 1969, but Lions Club records show his Leary speech was on 6 January 1969 and the club had disbanded before October. On that January evening Venus was near maximum brightness in the direction Carter described, and Robert Sheaffer and Allan Hendry concluded it was Venus; others have suggested an upper-atmosphere chemical-release rocket.

Venus at near-maximum brightness (Sheaffer, Hendry)

• 

  UAP Evidence & Analysis | Mick WestWatch from 32:36 on YouTube

• Contested32:36Mick WestFirsthand

  Jimmy Carter's reported UFO sighting from his own driveway was later attributed, based on time and location analysis, to most likely being the planet Venus or a rocket launch/re-entry.

  Jimmy Carter saw a UFO from from his driveway once... People figured out what it was based on the time and location.

  Our check Two independent strict checks disagreed (supported vs contested). First: Carter's sighting at Leary, Georgia is dated by Lions Club records to the evening of 6 January 1969 (Carter's 1973 report form said October 1969); Robert Sheaffer attributed it to Venus, and Carl Justus (2020) to a barium cloud released by rocket AG7.626 from Eglin AFB at 7:35 pm that evening. A JPL Horizons query for Leary at 7:15 pm EST puts Venus at magnitude -4.3, azimuth 237 degrees (west-southwest), 25 degrees up, close to Carter's 'about 30 degrees above the horizon to the west'. West's 'Venus or perhaps a rocket launch' matches both published explanations; the Sheaffer and Justus texts themselves were not opened (figshare refused), only summaries plus the ephemeris check. Second: Carter's own 1973 report to the International UFO Bureau puts the sighting at Leary, Georgia, outdoors while waiting for a Lions Club meeting at 7:30 pm, with about ten other club members watching. It was not at his driveway. Lions Club records moved the date to 6 January 1969. Two explanations were later fitted to that time and place, matching West's 'Venus or a rocket': Venus near maximum brightness (Sheaffer, Hendry), and a barium cloud from a rocket launched at Eglin AFB that night at 7:35 pm EST (Justus, 2016, citing the 1970 COSPAR report, which was not opened here). Carter himself rejected the Venus explanation, and neither explanation is officially established.

  Sources ssd.jpl.nasa.gov, en.wikipedia.org, drdavidclarke.co.uk, ufologie.patrickgross.org, en.wikipedia.org

  Said in UAP Evidence & Analysis | Mick West

• Wikipedia: Jimmy Carter UFO incidenten.wikipedia.org