"UFOs are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head," says Paul Hellyer, former Canadian Defence Minister.
On September 25, 2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the attention of mainstream media, Hellyer made headlines by publicly announcing that he believes in UFOs. He says, "We lived too long in a sense of isolation, thinking that Earth was the center of the cosmos, that we were the only species and, therefore, probably the most advanced."
"The reality is that they (aliens) have been visiting earth for decades and probably millennia and have contributed considerably to our knowledge."
In 2005, when speaking at an Exopolitics Conference in Toronto, he told the audience that he had seen a UFO one night with his late wife and some friends. Although he discounted the experience at the time, he kept an open mind to it. He started taking the issue much more seriously after watching ABC's Peter Jennings' UFO special in 2005.
Hellyer read U.S. Army Colonel Philip J. Corso's book, "The Day After Roswell," which had been sitting on his shelf for some time, and later spoke to a retired U.S. Air Force general, who confirmed the accuracy of the information.
"The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unparalled. The classification was from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in-the-loop."
Hellyer joined forces with three non-governmental organizations to ask Canada’s Parliament to hold public hearings regarding alien extraterrestrial civilizations. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who publicly reported a 1969 "Close Encounter of the First Kind" with a UFO, filed the original request for hearings, which was denied "because of their already crowded schedule."
Hellyer says, "The time has come to lift the veil of secrecy, and let the truth emerge, so there can be a real and informed debate, about one of the most important problems facing our planet today."
He has publicly stated: "UFOs are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head."
