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1. Hillary Clinton, the First ‘E.T.
Candidate,’ Has U.F.O. Fan Thrall
Clinton Library
Clinton with Laurence S. Rockefeller in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in 1995.
Tucked under her arm is a copy of “Are We ALone?: Philosophical
Implications on the Discovery of Extraterrestial Lfe” by Paul Davies.
When Jimmy Kimmel
asked Hillary Clinton in
a late-night TV interview
about U.F.O.s, she quickly
corrected his terminology.
“You know, there’s a new
name,” Mrs. Clinton said in
the March appearance. “It’s
unexplained aerial phe-
nomenon,” she said. “U.A.P.
That’s the latest
nomenclature.”
Known for her grasp of
policy, Mrs. Clinton has
spoken at length in her
presidential campaign on
topics ranging from
Alzheimer’s research to
military tensions in the
South China Sea. But it is
her unusual knowledge
about extraterrestrials that
has struck a small but
committed cohort of voters.
Mrs. Clinton has vowed
that barring any threats to
national security, she would
open up
government files on the
subject, a shift from
President Obama, who
typically dismisses the topic
as a joke. Her
position has elated U.F.O.
enthusiasts, who have
declared Mrs. Clinton the
first “E.T. candidate.”
“Hillary has embraced this
issue with an
absolutely
unprecedented level of
interest in American
politics,” said Joseph G.
Buchman, who has spent
decades calling for more
transparency in
government about
extraterrestrials.
Mrs. Clinton, a cautious
candidate who often
bemoans being the subject
of Republican
conspiracy theories, has
shown surprising ease
plunging into the
discussion of the
possibility of
extraterrestrial beings.
She has said in recent
interviews that as
president she would release
information about Area 51,
the remote Air Force base
in Nevada believed by some
to be a secret hub where the
government stores
classified information about
aliens an
In a radio interview last
month, she said, “I want to
open the files as much as we
can.” Asked if she believed
in U.F.O.s, Mrs. Clinton
said, “I don’t know. I want
to see what the information
shows.” But, she added,
“There’s enough stories out
there that I don’t think
everybody is just sitting in
their kitchen making them
up.”
When asked about
extraterrestrials in an
interview with The
Conway Daily Sun in New
Hampshire late last year,
Mrs. Clinton promised to
“get to the bottom of it.”
This California Desert Town is Experincing a
Marijuana Boom
MEL MELCON/ Los Angeles Times
Indica-based buds called PR Church are handled amid containers of other marijuana strains inside the bud room at Patients Against Pain Cannabis Collective in Los Angeles.
Carlos Bravo, the owner
of a tow company here, was
at work late last year when
a real estate agent came to
him offering half a million
dollars for 5 acres of
undeveloped, brush-pocked
desert — five times what
he'd paid for the land six
months earlier.
"I thought he was joking,"
Bravo said.
The man came back the
next day, making it clear he
was not.
A few days after he had
signed the paperwork,
Bravo said, another man
offered him $1 million.
As the first city in
Southern California to
legalize large-scale
medical marijuana
cultivation, Desert Hot
Springs has been inundated
by marijuana growers and
developers. They are
buying up dusty desert land
— some with no utilities or
roads — in hopes of cash-
ing in as California's mar-
ijuana growers come into
the open under new state
regulations.
“It's pretty chaotic," said
Coachella Valley real estate
broker Marc Robinson. "I'm
getting tons of calls from all
over the world, all over the
United States. My newest
clients flew over from
Germany."
Despite a sizable need
for new infrastructure to
support the indoor grow-
ing projects, the rush has
officials in this
downtrodden town
dreaming of new income.
"I can only imagine what
we can do with the tax
revenue," Mayor Scott Ma-
tas said. "We're in need of
parks, our roads are
dilapidated. All around
— our sidewalks, curbs,
gutters."
The city is pushing hard
to help developers get their
projects up and running as
it increasingly faces
competition from a number
of desert cities also eager to
bring growers to town.
Desert Hot Springs' foray
into marijuana stemmed
from financial need,
officials said.
The city has long tried to
position itself as a
Coachella Valley tourist
destination alongside its
resort-town neighbors
south of Interstate 10,
but it's never managed
to attract the same level
of development. Median
household income here is
$33,500 — far below the
state median.