The Carter White House received more mail than any other White House on the issue of UFOs. Despite this, there is no evidence that President Carter read any of the thousands of letters. He certainly didn’t answer any of them personally.

The evidence, in fact, seems to indicate that Carter and those around him, went out of their way to avoid the letters that poured in. None of the thousands of writers received serious attention. This even included a letter regarding UFOs sent by a man who had as a chief of police, had "helped to prevent a kidnapping of Carter’s daughter Amy."

The apparent ignoring of the thousands of UFO letters that poured into the Carter White House, is strange in light of the fact that President Carter was the only President to openly declare that he had experienced a UFO sighting. His pre-election statements lead UFO witnesses and researcher to believe that he would support the effort to reveal the answer to the UFO mystery.

Carter’s UFO encounter was written up in the  National Enquirer on June 8, 1976 while Carter was still campaigning for the White House. The bold front page story headline read "Jimmy Carter: The Night I saw a UFO." (recently discovered evidence indicates that Carter did not say what the reporter had claimed. What he did say was hyped to make for a good story).

With a weekly sales figure of five million, and a readership estimated at double this figure, the short couple hundred word article initiated a deluge of UFO letters into the White House. These letters were written by people in all walks of life from children to military old-timers, from housewives to professionals. Some had written to express an opinion. Some had written to tell the President that he was not alone - they too had had a UFO sighting.

The letters were handled by Frank Moore, Assistant to the President for Congressional Liaison. Moore was one of the " Georgia Carter Clan" that came to Washington following Carter’s election. He had been with Carter since working as a campaign aide with Carter during Carter’s 1966 Gubernatorial campaign.

Among the letters was one from researcher Larry W. Bryant who by 1977 had already been writing letters to Presidents and others in the Washington political elite for 20 years related to UFOs. Bryant worked in the Pentagon as a writer and editor for U.S. Army publications.

He wrote his letter to the newly elected Carter on February 6, 1977. Placing the letter in the mailbox, Bryant was not optimistic. "After all," he wrote, "considering my then-already 20 years of needling officialdom...how could I expect to receive any more than the dismissive, formula response that I’ve always received? I had expected no substantive reply. I wasn’t disappointed."

In his letter to President Carter, Bryant stated that he realized that he was probably one of many letters to Carter about UFOs, due to Carter’s admission that he had witnessed a UFO. He wrote that he realized that his letter, along with the others would be:

"referred by your office to Headquarters, Department of the Air Force, for direct reply — despite the fact that the Air Force disavows its continued, formal involvement in the collection, evaluation, and dissemination of the UFO-sighting reports; and despite the fact, that back in the days of its UFO public-relations instrument known as Project Blue Book, it persistently denied to newsmen and to other private citizens that Blue Book managers were arbitrarily and systematically withholding reports from public scrutiny..."

In his letter, Bryant encouraged Carter to look into the roles of the FBI, National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and National Security Council in the cover-up. He encouraged Carter to publish his study of his findings:

"As a long time critic of the ‘politics of Ufology,’ I’m hoping that your examination of these roles would culminate in a formal report of your findings to the public, in the course of which you are undoubtedly will have fulfilled your campaign promise to disclose all UFO data now being kept secret by the federal government."

As expected Bryant’s letter was replied to on February 16, by the Air Force on behalf of President Carter. It was the standard letter every UFO researcher was seen or received many times. Colonel L.E. Seminare Jr. wrote that the Air Force was no longer in the UFO business, but all the records of Project Blue Book could be viewed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Further, Seminare wrote that the Air Force was not covering up anything, and that there is no evidence to indicate the Air Force should do any further study concerning the phenomena. Moreover, if there were reason to continue the study, Seminare there was no money because of the "present constraints on available resources."

"Hopefully," Seminare concluded the letter, "the forgoing information will clarify the Air Force position on this matter."

The letter written to President Carter had not even mentioned Carter’s name outside the first line. It did not deal at all with the Presidential or White House position on the UFO subject. Sadly, the letter had become simply a defense of Air Force policy on UFOs. More sadly, the response was exactly what Larry Bryant had expected.

More than any other White House, the UFO letters were simply ignored, and did not even receive the standard history of Air Force UFO research. It didn’t seem to matter how important the person writing was. Tom Sheets, for example, wrote President Carter and did not receive a reply. Sheets was at one time the chief of police in College Park, Georgia. He was also an avid investigator into UFOs, serving as Georgia M.U.F.O.N. state director.

Sheets importance to President Carter was this. Sheets had actually foiled an attempt by a man to abduct the President’s daughter Amy Carter. His letter was simply ignored.

Sometimes it took more than one letter to President Carter to get a "kiss-of" letter from the Air Force. A telegram from Larry McCann, the producer of a new television show in New York called "UFO Update" was a prime example. A few months after Carter took office McCann wrote to ask for more details on the sighting Carter had experienced, and about his campaign promise to disclose everything that the government knew about UFOs. McCann waited and received no reply.

On July 26, 1977 McCann wrote again. This time his letter was a lot less friendly. In addition to repeating his request for information about Carter campaign promise, McCann made reference to Air Force officers losing their lives chasing UFOs. This allegation was taken by McCann from Air Force general Benjamin Chicklaw titled Situation Red which had just been published.

The new approach worked, but not well enough to get a reply from Carter. Once again Air Force Col. Seminare was answering president Carter’s mail. The letter was the standard Air Force UFO denial letter received by Larry Bryant, except for a strong denial about Air Force pilots dying which pursuing UFOs. "Further," wrote Seminare, "the United States military has no record of any military aircraft ever engaging in combat with a so-called UFO."