Richard Dolan — "NEW DETAILS on the Jimmy Carter UFO BRIEFING" (10 March 2026)

• Source: Richard Dolan, Intelligent Disclosure (YouTube), "NEW DETAILS on the Jimmy Carter UFO BRIEFING," 10 March 2026 (~17:40). https://youtu.be/7coDRQ9Nf5I
• Speaker: Richard Dolan (UFO historian, ~48).
• Transcript pulled 2026-05-30 via YouTube caption API (youtube_transcript.py). Lightly auto-formatted.
• Primary for ../../sources/carter-1977-briefing-claim.
• Core content: Dolan reports Eric Davis's claim (made on the Jesse Michels podcast with Eric Weinstein) that President Carter received a classified UFO briefing in June 1977 in which he was told the US had been in contact with alien beings — and Dolan corroborates with his own ~20-year-old anonymous source (Carter "sobbing or nearly sobbing," or praying, afterward). Dolan also gives the documented Carter–UFO history (the 1969 Leary GA sighting; the 1976-campaign openness; the Blue Book-release promise; the NASA "hard no"; Grenada PM Eric Gairy's UN push) and flags the Project Aquarius / MJ-12 connection as entangled with the Moore/Doty disinformation operation.
  Davis's specific claims (per Dolan): meeting began as a routine NSC economic-policy session, moved to the Oval Office; documentation exists in the Carter Presidential Library; an attendee list with all names visible except two (redacted); story later confirmed to Davis by Alonzo McDonald (Carter's White House staff director), who investigated and concluded the briefing happened; participants returned their briefing documents, then reconstructed the briefing from memory — which Davis says became the 'Aquarius document.'

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[00:00:02.000] Greetings.
[00:00:03.480] Uh very recently physicist Eric Davis
[00:00:06.440] made a striking claim
[00:00:09.160] uh during a discussion with Eric
[00:00:11.040] Weinstein on the Jesse Michaels podcast.
[00:00:14.280] So Davis stated that President Jimmy
[00:00:16.200] Carter
[00:00:17.440] received a classified briefing on UFOs
[00:00:21.000] in June of 1977
[00:00:23.640] early in his presidency.
[00:00:26.080] And according to Davis, the meeting
[00:00:27.720] began as a routine economic policy
[00:00:31.200] session in the National Security Council
[00:00:33.800] conference room, but when the UFO
[00:00:36.640] discussion began, the meeting moved to
[00:00:39.480] the Oval Office.
[00:00:41.360] And in fact
[00:00:42.800] Davis goes well beyond saying that
[00:00:45.200] Carter just received a classified UFO
[00:00:47.240] briefing.
[00:00:48.360] Uh what he said was that Carter was told
[00:00:50.480] that the United States government had
[00:00:52.480] been in contact with alien beings. So in
[00:00:55.560] other words
[00:00:56.760] not talking about just a briefing of
[00:00:58.600] unidentified objects. This is a briefing
[00:01:00.680] about contact.
[00:01:02.760] Uh
[00:01:03.360] Davis also stated that there was
[00:01:05.440] documentation on this meeting that
[00:01:07.400] exists in the Carter Presidential
[00:01:09.280] Library.
[00:01:10.680] And he said that there's an attendee
[00:01:12.520] list showing who was present.
[00:01:15.720] And every name is visible except two.
[00:01:18.560] Two individuals and their organizations
[00:01:21.760] uh remain redacted to this day.
[00:01:25.240] Uh
[00:01:26.200] let's see. Davis also said the story was
[00:01:28.240] later confirmed to him and others by
[00:01:31.080] Alonzo McDonald. McDonald was Carter's
[00:01:34.160] White House staff director.
[00:01:36.520] According to Davis, uh McDonald looked
[00:01:39.160] into the event himself. He spoke with
[00:01:40.880] Carter and with individuals who attended
[00:01:43.960] the meeting
[00:01:45.360] and concluded that the briefing had
[00:01:48.080] indeed taken place.
[00:01:50.280] Um Eric Davis connected this briefing to
[00:01:53.920] what has long been referred to as
[00:01:55.440] Project Aquarius.
[00:01:57.320] This is um we'll say an alleged
[00:02:00.000] classified UFO program. So, in his
[00:02:02.840] account, the participants in the
[00:02:04.160] meeting, the briefing for the president,
[00:02:07.080] they were all given briefing documents
[00:02:08.720] that they later had to return. And then
[00:02:11.360] afterwards, several of them met
[00:02:12.959] privately
[00:02:14.360] and reconstructed the briefing from
[00:02:15.959] memory. And And according to Eric Davis,
[00:02:18.440] that reconstruction eventually became
[00:02:20.840] known as the Aquarius document.
[00:02:23.480] And by the way, the Aquarius document is
[00:02:24.880] a very interesting one in UFO history as
[00:02:28.000] well. So, it's a short uh it's a telex
[00:02:30.600] style message
[00:02:32.440] surfaced in the early 1980s through the
[00:02:34.920] researcher William Moore, Bill Moore,
[00:02:37.880] during the Paul Bennewitz affair. Some
[00:02:39.800] of you are familiar with this.
[00:02:41.640] So, the text refers to a classified
[00:02:43.560] program called Project Aquarius.
[00:02:46.520] Uh it's described as a top secret
[00:02:48.400] project with dem dissemination
[00:02:51.920] restricted to a small group identified
[00:02:54.840] as MJ-12.
[00:02:57.680] So, the document states that
[00:02:59.600] intelligence agencies were monitoring
[00:03:02.840] Bennewitz's observations
[00:03:05.560] and communications
[00:03:07.400] concerning UFO activity near Kirtland
[00:03:09.560] Air Force Base.
[00:03:11.480] And it also refers to analysis of
[00:03:14.200] photographs and film taken by Bennewitz
[00:03:18.120] and indicated that the whole matter of
[00:03:21.160] all of this was being handled at the
[00:03:22.400] highest levels of classified oversight.
[00:03:26.800] And one of the most notable phrases
[00:03:28.600] appearing
[00:03:30.120] in uh in that as well as the actual
[00:03:32.680] MJ-12 papers, which came out shortly
[00:03:34.640] after this,
[00:03:35.760] is the reference to extraterrestrial
[00:03:37.720] biological entities.
[00:03:40.519] So, again, suggesting that the program
[00:03:42.280] didn't just deal with unidentified
[00:03:43.920] craft, but actually with non-human
[00:03:45.680] beings
[00:03:47.200] as well.
[00:03:48.959] So, in my own research on this, I I
[00:03:50.720] noted uh in at least one of my books
[00:03:53.240] that the Aquarius document and and the
[00:03:55.600] MJ-12 document connected to it really
[00:03:58.520] was very deeply entangled with the whole
[00:04:01.400] Moore uh Richard Doty intelligence
[00:04:04.120] operation surrounding Bennewitz.
[00:04:07.760] Some versions of the text were clearly
[00:04:09.280] altered, for example, changing reference
[00:04:12.000] uh
[00:04:12.800] of NSA analysis into NASA analysis. Um
[00:04:17.959] Moore added the letter A in there to
[00:04:19.480] change the organization. So,
[00:04:22.002] >> [clears throat]
[00:04:22.040] >> it certainly suggests that the
[00:04:23.480] circulating copies were definite were
[00:04:25.600] not clean originals.
[00:04:27.480] So, as a result,
[00:04:29.640] uh the Aquarius material has for a long
[00:04:31.600] time been regarded as a mixture of
[00:04:34.120] possible authentic program terminology
[00:04:37.280] and deliberate disinformation.
[00:04:40.680] So, anyway, Davis is providing
[00:04:42.520] information
[00:04:43.919] about all of this with very powerful
[00:04:46.560] implications.
[00:04:48.640] But, it actually touches on a story that
[00:04:51.320] has circulated within the UFO research
[00:04:53.520] world for many
[00:04:55.560] years, and I should explain something
[00:04:57.120] about that uh because long before
[00:04:59.840] this whole conversation came about
[00:05:02.520] between Eric Davis, Eric Weinstein on
[00:05:04.240] the Jesse Michaels podcast,
[00:05:06.720] I had encountered a version of this same
[00:05:09.000] story through a very well-placed source
[00:05:13.400] within the national security world. Um
[00:05:16.480] we're talking close to 20 years ago when
[00:05:18.760] I was told this, so quite a while ago.
[00:05:20.960] Uh that source and I he is anonymous to
[00:05:23.280] this day,
[00:05:24.720] uh but I will only say he is
[00:05:26.800] in a good position
[00:05:28.680] to have known this story as well.
[00:05:32.080] And this individual
[00:05:33.720] described to me a briefing
[00:05:36.480] early in the Carter presidency that took
[00:05:38.400] place in June of 1977, the same month
[00:05:41.480] that Eric Davis described.
[00:05:43.280] Uh
[00:05:44.840] and told me it was a it was a UFO
[00:05:47.240] related briefing and that in the
[00:05:48.560] aftermath of that that the president was
[00:05:50.800] seen
[00:05:51.960] sitting alone at his desk
[00:05:54.080] with his head down
[00:05:55.680] elbows on the desk and either
[00:05:57.920] very deeply upset
[00:06:00.160] or perhaps as Eric Davis now is
[00:06:02.520] indicating
[00:06:03.680] praying.
[00:06:05.040] And that seems strikes me as entirely
[00:06:08.200] plausible as well. That's entirely
[00:06:10.160] possible.
[00:06:12.520] But hearing the account back then almost
[00:06:15.160] 20 years ago, it made a very strong
[00:06:16.800] impression on me and
[00:06:18.800] certainly suggested to me that the
[00:06:21.560] Carter administration
[00:06:23.919] very likely had confronted the UFO
[00:06:25.919] question much more directly than a lot
[00:06:28.919] of people realize. So
[00:06:30.760] of course with Eric Davis's account you
[00:06:32.520] we've got a number of new details which
[00:06:34.400] are very very helpful.
[00:06:36.360] Now whether they ultimately hold up to a
[00:06:38.480] future research, I guess that remains to
[00:06:40.360] be seen. I tend to believe what he is
[00:06:43.800] saying here.
[00:06:45.560] They certainly point us back to an
[00:06:48.919] important historical moment which is
[00:06:50.919] that
[00:06:51.960] the whole everything around the Carter
[00:06:53.160] White House and the UFO issue
[00:06:55.800] during 1977 because
[00:06:59.280] something very
[00:07:00.600] important really did happen that year.
[00:07:03.720] So Jimmy Carter entered
[00:07:05.880] the presidency
[00:07:07.600] with a
[00:07:08.520] a definite personal interest in UFOs.
[00:07:12.560] You know, recall that back in 1969
[00:07:16.000] while he had been governor of the state
[00:07:17.720] of Georgia
[00:07:20.320] Jimmy Carter reported observing a
[00:07:22.160] strange object in the sky
[00:07:24.600] along with several other witnesses at a
[00:07:26.640] Lions Club meeting as he said. And
[00:07:28.919] apparently it was a very striking
[00:07:30.320] sighting. And there were skeptics who
[00:07:32.520] said, well, he saw the planet Jupiter or
[00:07:34.200] Venus made an astronomical Carter never
[00:07:36.919] believed that.
[00:07:38.280] He never said that he knew it was a
[00:07:39.760] flying saucer but he it was very obvious
[00:07:42.320] he never believed the skeptical
[00:07:43.560] explanation for that. In any case,
[00:07:45.280] during the 1976 presidential campaign
[00:07:50.360] to the shock of the world, he spoke very
[00:07:54.320] openly about that sighting.
[00:07:56.760] Uh this was a really
[00:07:58.520] a watershed moment in the sense with the
[00:08:00.600] UFO subject. No presidential candidate
[00:08:03.480] had ever ever discussed this subject.
[00:08:06.480] So, Jimmy Carter was brave enough to
[00:08:08.440] talk about it. And then on top of that,
[00:08:10.960] he promised that if elected, he would
[00:08:14.000] make UFO information available to
[00:08:16.520] scientists and the public, specifically
[00:08:18.120] the Project Blue Book information, which
[00:08:20.200] those records were not uh publicly
[00:08:22.800] available at that time.
[00:08:25.560] So, this promised like um
[00:08:29.360] a
[00:08:30.120] you know, some serious progress that
[00:08:31.800] could be made
[00:08:33.200] uh in the field, and it generated
[00:08:34.880] enormous interest among
[00:08:38.760] not just UFO researchers, but I would
[00:08:40.280] say the general public.
[00:08:41.800] Uh
[00:08:42.680] and this is because like once Carter
[00:08:44.280] entered the White House, that was in
[00:08:45.280] January 1977,
[00:08:48.280] within almost immediately, his
[00:08:51.320] White House began receiving
[00:08:53.680] huge [snorts] volumes of mail
[00:08:56.080] from citizens
[00:08:58.160] asking about UFOs and telling him UFO
[00:09:01.040] stories and generally just very excited
[00:09:03.480] about what they believed was going to be
[00:09:05.320] an impending UFO disclosure.
[00:09:08.240] Uh it's it's hard for us today to get
[00:09:11.080] back into the mindset of of people back
[00:09:13.640] then, but this was
[00:09:15.400] an absolutely big issue.
[00:09:17.480] Uh the White House was just inundated
[00:09:19.600] with letters urging him
[00:09:22.520] uh Jimmy Carter to release, you know,
[00:09:24.640] all the government information on the
[00:09:25.920] subject. So,
[00:09:27.680] inside the administration, there were
[00:09:29.440] also discussions about what to do.
[00:09:33.240] So, one idea
[00:09:35.320] was to revive uh some kind of official
[00:09:37.880] scientific investigation
[00:09:40.600] of UFOs under civilian authority.
[00:09:43.800] So, you know, you may recall after the
[00:09:45.520] Air Force closed Project Blue Book
[00:09:48.520] in 1969,
[00:09:50.760] there had been no formal federal program
[00:09:54.360] studying the UFO phenomenon after that.
[00:09:57.000] So,
[00:09:58.200] Carter's people considered asking NASA
[00:10:01.960] to take on this role.
[00:10:04.440] Uh the idea was very simple, to create a
[00:10:06.680] civilian scientific study that would
[00:10:09.520] replace the old Air Force project.
[00:10:11.680] Simple. That proposal ran into problems
[00:10:14.320] almost immediately. Uh for one, NASA
[00:10:16.960] showed
[00:10:18.040] zero interest in taking on the task.
[00:10:21.400] Uh
[00:10:22.280] to call it a hard no would be an
[00:10:23.800] understatement. Uh the officials there
[00:10:26.360] just argued, "Look, UFO reports, they do
[00:10:28.880] not justify a major scientific
[00:10:31.880] investigation."
[00:10:33.720] Um and at the same time, there were very
[00:10:37.000] strong indications that other agencies
[00:10:40.960] within the national security system,
[00:10:42.600] i.e. CIA,
[00:10:44.640] were
[00:10:45.600] standing right behind NASA, essentially
[00:10:48.240] guiding their responses in this. CIA was
[00:10:51.280] not
[00:10:52.440] uh at at all enthusiastic about
[00:10:54.680] reopening the subject. So, in short, the
[00:10:56.560] attempt went nowhere.
[00:10:59.800] Now, at roughly the same time,
[00:11:02.560] President Carter encountered another
[00:11:04.720] dimension of the UFO issue through
[00:11:08.080] international politics, we could say. In
[00:11:10.440] September of 1977, he met
[00:11:13.280] Gairy, who was the prime minister of the
[00:11:16.360] island nation of Grenada.
[00:11:19.480] And Gairy was very interested in UFOs.
[00:11:21.800] He'd had his own sighting years before.
[00:11:23.800] He's now prime minister, yes, of a small
[00:11:26.280] country, but they had a voice in the
[00:11:28.120] United Nations, and he thought,
[00:11:30.680] "Let's get the United Nations to have an
[00:11:33.440] open conversation, discussion, maybe
[00:11:35.800] even investigation of this phenomenon. A
[00:11:38.680] very radical idea when you really go
[00:11:40.440] back and think. This is a kind of a case
[00:11:42.720] of the lion of of the mouse that roared,
[00:11:45.320] you know. Grenada is the mouse and
[00:11:47.360] they're roaring here.
[00:11:48.800] So, Gary met he traveled to Washington
[00:11:52.000] to meet with President Carter in the
[00:11:54.760] fall of 1977 and he raised the issue
[00:11:58.200] directly.
[00:12:00.560] Uh
[00:12:01.440] well, that went nowhere with the
[00:12:04.160] president and
[00:12:05.960] all of the records of their conversation
[00:12:08.240] were not made available, but it clearly
[00:12:10.720] was a a big red stop sign there.
[00:12:14.040] Uh that didn't stop Gary incidentally.
[00:12:15.960] So, shortly afterward Grenada kept uh
[00:12:18.120] began pushing for a UN resolution
[00:12:21.840] uh calling for international cooperation
[00:12:24.000] in UFO research.
[00:12:26.080] Uh it didn't go anywhere.
[00:12:27.920] Uh the Americans and the United Kingdom
[00:12:30.440] were the strongest forces against this
[00:12:33.800] going anywhere, but it does illustrate
[00:12:36.920] how visible the subject had become
[00:12:39.880] during Carter's first year in office.
[00:12:42.760] Really quite fascinating story.
[00:12:45.320] So, you know, really despite all the
[00:12:47.640] public interest, despite Jimmy Carter's
[00:12:49.600] own curiosity,
[00:12:52.640] what it looks like is that by the end of
[00:12:54.920] 1977,
[00:12:56.680] the efforts of his administration
[00:12:58.640] basically had stalled. NASA did not want
[00:13:01.000] the job. Uh no new investigation
[00:13:04.560] was created and you got the White House
[00:13:08.040] seeming to stop uh its pursuit of the
[00:13:12.080] matter. So, from the outside it looks
[00:13:14.920] or looked at least at the time that the
[00:13:16.520] whole issue had just faded away.
[00:13:19.080] Uh
[00:13:19.960] some researchers have wondered
[00:13:22.839] whether that is the full story. So,
[00:13:25.440] the The record shows the whole thing
[00:13:27.120] ending in frustration at the end of '77.
[00:13:31.760] But, there are some hints that interest
[00:13:34.280] in the subject in the Carter White House
[00:13:35.960] may have continued
[00:13:38.200] behind the scenes. And this is where
[00:13:40.640] another perspective enters the picture.
[00:13:43.040] Uh researcher Allan Levine, who's a
[00:13:44.880] friend of mine,
[00:13:46.560] has described events
[00:13:49.120] that he encountered through the Aerial
[00:13:51.760] Phenomena Research Organization. It's
[00:13:53.560] APRO.
[00:13:54.840] during 1970s. And according to Allan,
[00:13:58.840] a very large UFO exhibition project was
[00:14:02.080] being planned
[00:14:03.720] in 1978 and 1979. This exhibit was to
[00:14:07.720] occupy a major space in the city of
[00:14:10.320] Minneapolis.
[00:14:12.240] And
[00:14:13.480] at least at some point may have been
[00:14:14.800] intended to travel across the United
[00:14:16.720] States as a kind of traveling history of
[00:14:19.320] UFO encounters.
[00:14:22.280] I have I've interviewed Allan on this
[00:14:24.200] matter in the past, and I have just
[00:14:26.880] interviewed him again. That interview
[00:14:29.080] will appear
[00:14:30.520] uh
[00:14:31.720] probably a day from now. It'll appear
[00:14:33.560] very, very soon.
[00:14:35.800] So, that is an interesting story, and he
[00:14:39.160] has his own reasons for believing
[00:14:41.560] that this museum ex- exhibition may have
[00:14:45.480] had ties to the Jimmy Carter White
[00:14:47.280] House. That is unproven,
[00:14:49.400] but uh
[00:14:50.400] he provides his argument as to why he
[00:14:52.240] thinks that is at least a possibility. I
[00:14:56.040] don't know how strong we should make
[00:14:57.280] this case right now.
[00:14:59.320] Uh the museum project ultimately
[00:15:01.760] disappeared.
[00:15:03.240] And whether it had any connection to
[00:15:04.720] government thinking at the time is not
[00:15:06.240] certain to me, although we should may
[00:15:08.960] want to keep that as a possibility. It
[00:15:10.880] does raise an interesting
[00:15:14.720] potential
[00:15:16.280] um reality here, which is that perhaps
[00:15:19.520] the Carter administration's engagement
[00:15:22.440] with the UFO issue
[00:15:24.360] did not end as abruptly as the public
[00:15:26.160] record suggests. So, perhaps there were
[00:15:28.480] additional discussions or experiments or
[00:15:30.640] ideas
[00:15:32.760] circulating behind the scenes
[00:15:35.080] in the years that followed. At this
[00:15:36.280] point, I I would just say
[00:15:38.160] we simply really do not know. What we do
[00:15:41.160] know
[00:15:42.480] is that the Carter presidency
[00:15:45.120] represents one of those few moments
[00:15:48.760] when the UFO issue
[00:15:51.040] briefly approached the center of
[00:15:54.280] American political life.
[00:15:57.440] I don't say it occupied the center, but
[00:15:59.480] maybe approached it. Uh so, now with Dr.
[00:16:02.480] Eric Davis raising new claims
[00:16:06.320] about a possible classified briefing in
[00:16:08.120] 1977,
[00:16:09.640] uh I would say that period deserves
[00:16:11.160] another careful look because if Davis is
[00:16:13.480] correct, and I I suspect he is,
[00:16:16.040] the Carter White House
[00:16:18.680] confronted information
[00:16:21.240] far more startling
[00:16:23.240] than anything that appeared in public.
[00:16:26.240] And if that happened,
[00:16:28.440] that might very well explain
[00:16:31.120] why the most
[00:16:32.800] apparently UFO-friendly president
[00:16:36.400] in modern American history
[00:16:39.920] abandoned the subject after he entered
[00:16:42.600] office.
[00:16:44.320] The Carter story, in other words, may
[00:16:46.760] not be finished yet.
[00:16:49.760] So, kudos to uh Dr. Davis for bringing
[00:16:52.280] this up, and kudos to Jesse Michel for
[00:16:54.440] having him on his program, and for uh
[00:16:56.200] Dr. Eric Weinstein for engaging in that
[00:16:58.320] discussion with him. I think
[00:17:00.120] um um we're we should be very glad that
[00:17:02.080] that occurred, and there's room for more
[00:17:04.199] research here now, so also a good sign.
[00:17:07.680] Well, that's all I've got for you on
[00:17:08.880] this today. Do look for my interview
[00:17:11.360] very soon with uh Alan Levine. That will
[00:17:14.160] be coming out, and you'll be able to
[00:17:15.439] hear Alan discuss what may very well be
[00:17:18.319] the aftermath of that whole Jimmy Carter
[00:17:21.480] story. So, um
[00:17:23.640] there you go. That's it. Uh I hope you
[00:17:25.520] enjoyed this. And if you like this
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[00:17:34.800] Thank you very, very much. Let's keep