Kucinich’s UFO Sighting: What He Really Saw

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


kucinichbelieve250.jpg

Dennis Kucinich has taken a lot of flack for saying that he once saw an unidentified flying object near Shirley MacLaine’s house back in 1982. The Wall Street Journal just did a front-page story on it, adding to the Kucinich-as-silly-person storyline. But what if he really did see something—just not an alien spaceship? That’s the skeptical-yet-speculative theory being floated over at Cannonfire:

The sighting took place in Washington state near Mt. Ranier, where the “flying saucer” craze was born.

Judging from the description of the three vehicles witnessed that day, I theorize that the party saw a test of prototype UAVs, or drones. Such unmanned reconnaissance craft were little-known at the time. They are well-known nowadays, since they play a major role in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although the early development of unmanned craft is not easy for outsiders to trace, these devices do have a long history. Marilyn Monroe, in the days before she had that name, once worked for a company producing the first mass-produced UAVs.

The Kucinich sighting took place in Graham, Washington, situated directly between Mount Ranier and McChord Air Force Base. (The mountain is some twenty miles away from the base.) The report indicates that the craft were flying toward McChord. After the flyover, Kucinich’s party saw military helicopters in the area.

Then how to explain MacLaine’s claim that during the sighting Kucinich felt “a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind”? No doubt the Department of Peace would want to keep that love-drone technology in its arsenal.

(Image: Buckeye State Blog)

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate