I have a story I can tell now about an off-the-record conversation I once had with the late Jimmy Carter, about one of the great human controversies: UFOs.

Back in what my daughters now call the "late 1900s" we did a story on a support group at a New York hospital, for people who believed they had been abducted and brought aboard alien spacecraft. I liked the people, even as I questioned their accounts.

I recalled that in 1973 when he was governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter reported that he had once seen a UFO. "It didn't have any solid substance to it," he said in filed statement, "it was just a very peculiar-looking light."

I phoned a contact, some messages went back and forth and, within days, the former president's familiar voice was on the line.

This is totally off-the-record, I assured Mr. Carter. "But you were president for four years. You had access to all the national security intelligence. Could these people be right? Mr. President, is there anything we should know?"

The president chuckled and replied, "No. But remember," he added, "a UFO is simply something we haven't identified. There are dozens of unexplained incursions of our airspace every year. They're usually some experiment. You'd be surprised," he said, "how often the Navy doesn't know what the Air Force is up to, and so forth."

"So based on what you've seen," I ventured, "you have no reason to think there's life... out there?"

"I don't know that," Mr. Carter gently corrected me. "But if there is, it has nothing to do with UFOs. If there's some other civilization out there, I doubt they'd send big, bulky airships. They'd probably just keep watch and leave us alone."

I was struck by President Carter's thoughtfulness, and chanced a last question.

"But if there were other civilizations out there," I asked, "would the government have to keep it a secret? So we wouldn't panic, or feel worthless?"

"The way I see it," said Jimmy Carter, "there's nothing to fear. If there is life out there, we're still all part of the same master plan. God's hands are big enough to hold us both."

As America paid tribute to Jimmy Carter this week, I thought of our brief conversation years ago as a blessing — and a glimpse into his open, indomitable heart.

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