One film star who has seen a UFO is German-born actress Elke Sommer, who in 1978 was in the garden of her Los Angeles home when a shiny orange ball, about 20 feet in diameter, appeared out of the blue. 'It was glowing and floating about like a big moon,' she said. 'It came towards me and I fled into the house. When I reappeared, it had vanished.
Boxer Muhammad Ali was on a training session in New York's Central Park in 1972 when he encountered a UFO. He said: "I was out jogging just before sunrise when this bright light hovered over me.
It just seemed to be watching me. It was like a huge electric light bulb in the sky."
Statesmen and politicians who have seen UFOs include John Gilligan, Governor of Ohio, who in 1973 reported seeing a UFO near Ann Arbor, Michigan. He described it as 'a vertical shaft of light which glowed amber'.
Sir Eric Gairey, Prime Minister of the Caribbean island of Grenada, tried unsuccessfully in 1978 to have the United Nations officially investigate UFOs. He said he himself had seen one - 'a brilliant golden light travelling at tremendous speed'.
But the most famous UFO spotter of all is Jimmy Carter who, while still Governor of Georgia, in 1973, was sitting out on a verandah with 20 other people after an official dinner at Thomastown when, in his words, they witnessed a UFO 'which looked as big as the Moon and changed colour several times from red to green'. He launched a $20 million study into UFOs after becoming US President.
