When Jimmy Kimmel asked Hillary Clinton in a late-night TV interview about U.F.O.s, she quickly corrected his terminology.
You know, theres a new name, Mrs. Clinton said in the March appearance. Its unexplained aerial phenomenon, she said. U.A.P. Thats the latest nomenclature.
Known for her grasp of policy, Mrs. Clinton has spoken at length in her presidential campaign on topics ranging from Alzheimers research to military tensions in the South China Sea. But it is her unusual knowledge about extraterrestrials that has struck a small but committed cohort of voters.
Mrs. Clinton has vowed that barring any threats to national security, she would open up government files on the subject, a shift from President Obama, who typically dismisses the topic as a joke. Her position has elated U.F.O. enthusiasts, who have declared Mrs. Clinton the first E.T. candidate.
Hillary has embraced this issue with an absolutely unprecedented level of interest in American politics, said Joseph G. Buchman, who has spent decades calling for more transparency in government about extraterrestrials.
Mrs. Clinton, a cautious candidate who often bemoans being the subject of Republican conspiracy theories, has shown surprising ease plunging into the discussion of the possibility of extraterrestrial beings.
She has said in recent interviews that as president she would release information about Area 51, the remote Air Force base in Nevada believed by some to be a secret hub where the government stores classified information about aliens and U.F.O.s.
In a radio interview last month, she said, I want to open the files as much as we can. Asked if she believed in U.F.O.s, Mrs. Clinton said, I dont know. I want to see what the information shows. But, she added, Theres enough stories out there that I dont think everybody is just sitting in their kitchen making them up.
When asked about extraterrestrials in an interview with The Conway Daily Sun in New Hampshire late last year, Mrs. Clinton promised to get to the bottom of it.
