Jimmy Carter is the only U.S. president known to have filed a formal pre-presidential UFO sighting report. In 1969, while preparing to speak at a Lions Club meeting in Leary, Georgia, he and other witnesses observed a luminous object that changed apparent size and color before disappearing. His later campaign statements about UFO file transparency made him a central presidential figure in public disclosure history.
Carter reported that the 1969 Leary, Georgia sighting involved a bright object that appeared above the horizon, shifted from white to blue and red, and then vanished. He filed the report in 1973 with the International UFO Bureau, years before entering the White House. Carter's presidency did not produce the sweeping public UFO disclosure some advocates hoped for, but the combination of a firsthand sighting, a formal report, and later public discussion makes him unusually direct among U.S. presidents.