UFOs on the Ballot: Denver to Vote on Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission
Ballot initiative in Denver seeks Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission.
Nov. 1, 2010 — -- When Denver voters head to the polls tomorrow, they won't just have a chance to vote for a new senator or representatives. They'll have a chance to cast their ballots for E.T.
On the ballot this year is an initiative that would charge the city with creating a seven-person panel to study unidentified flying objects and extraterrestrial life.
Jeff Peckman, the Denver entrepreneur spearheading the campaign, said Denver's Initiative 300 would establish an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission responsible for collecting and sharing evidence that extraterrestrials are visiting Earth and for assessing the risks and benefits of making contact with those aliens.
"The reason it's important is that this needs to start somewhere. It's not starting anywhere, at the federal level or state level or any other level of government," Peckman said. "In this country we believe this could very well be a citizen's task."
The commission would be privately funded with grants and gifts, but would have the support of the mayor and the city of Denver, he said, adding that the panel's findings and progress would be posted on the city's website.
Though the panel won't need taxpayer's dollars, Peckman said it's still important that the public vote to approve it.
"The process of this ballot initiative engages the public in this discussion that they've been left out of," he said. "[And the commission] gives it a kind of official status."
Peckman was able to collect 10,000 signatures to get the initiative on the ballot, but said he "can't even think about whether it's going to pass. He said they've already been victorious in raising local awareness on the issue.
But he's also been successful in raising local doubt.
In an "Editorial Shorttake" on the initiative, the Denver Post said "Should E.T. phone here, we say: Hang up." Other reports suggest that while the initiative has attracted interest, it's not necessarily the kind of interest needed to elevate E.T. to city hall.
Still, UFO researchers in other parts of the country are taking note.
Michael Luckman, author of "Alien Rock: The Rock 'N' Roll Extraterrestrial Connection" and director of the New York Center for Extraterrestrial Research, said he's been in touch with Peckman and hopes that, in the future, he'll be able to introduce a similar proposal in New York City.
"More than anything else this is a way of focusing worldwide attention, particularly in New York, which is the media capital of the world, on the issue of extraterrestrials and their visitation to Earth," he said, "[We're] moving in a direction of disclosure, meaning mass disclosure to the public on the part of the government."
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