Arizona senator, 1964 Republican presidential nominee, and retired Air Force Reserve major general. In UFO literature he is often cited for public remarks and a 1975 letter stating that material at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was classified above Top Secret and that he had been denied access to it.
Barry Goldwater was a long-serving U.S. senator from Arizona, the Republican Party's 1964 presidential nominee, and a retired major general in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. Although he is primarily remembered for his role in modern American conservatism, he also became a frequently cited figure in UFO literature because he publicly acknowledged a longstanding personal interest in the subject. In a 1975 letter and later interviews, Goldwater said he had tried years earlier to gain access to a reportedly sensitive room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and had been told the material there was classified above Top Secret. Those comments did not amount to a formal claim about extraterrestrial craft, but they made Goldwater a recurring reference point in debates over secrecy, access, and what senior officials were or were not allowed to see.