Transcript: Out There

PHOTO AND INTERVIEW BY DAVID MENDELSOHN

Way back in 2008, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was campaigning here when reporter Daymond Steer from Milford’s weekly paper asked, in last-minute fashion, her thoughts on UFOs. Her response made international news. Currently with the Conway Daily Sun, Steer is still defying gravity, asking every presidential hopeful he encounters the same question. He’s open to all explanations, from humanity being raised as consumable livestock to ancient underground (or undersea) civilizations out stretching their vehicular legs. And if ET ever drops by, Steer has his questions ready.

I’ve been with the Sun since October 2010. I published my first article with the Keene Sentinel in 2002. The bulk of my job involves covering municipal and county governments as well as civil and criminal litigation. Before getting involved with newspapers, I washed dishes and checked boats for milfoil. [Hillary Clinton] had lived in the White House and I felt she might know something. The question popped in my head when she was getting ready to leave my office. Clinton sat back down and told me that question is the No. 1 request at the Clinton Library and she expressed curiosity about Area 51. If you want to learn more about the Clintons and UFOs, check out the Rockefeller Initiative. During the 2020 election cycle, the Sun’s management fully embraced my UFO question and it’s now part of our routine. I wouldn’t call myself a believer or a debunker. I’m curious and seeking more information. For the most part, the people who have told me about seeing UFOs are credible people with little reason to make up a story. A number of those people are local to my area and they include a law enforcement officer and business owners. The Truth is out there. Maybe we are in a simulation and nothing really exists. If the simulation theory is good enough for Elon Musk, it’s good enough for me. As far as the government’s change of tune on the UFO phenomenon, something hinky is going on and I’d like to know what. Or perhaps the government is becoming more honest. I dunno. The Defense Department is now acknowledging that military members are reporting seeing unusual objects in the sky that seem to be operating in ways we don’t understand. Intellectual Eric Weinstein said, even if you discount the alien theory, recent admissions about mysterious objects should still be the “top story in the world” as either the government is lying at unprecedented levels, or other nations have leapfrogged our technology. In response to skeptic Mick West, Weinstein wrote, “What is the least interesting version of this story, Mick?” Cases seem to be common in Conway, but looks to me you have a fair chance of seeing a UFO anywhere in New Hampshire.

Daymond Steer has played a small part in keeping the lines of inquiry open and honest on the provocative, ridicule-prone and highly secretive topic of UFOs (or their new acronym UAPs), but with two of the major UFO stories of modern times based here (see feature story on page 64) our place in UFO history is secure and growing. “Sometimes my co-workers ask about UFOs on my behalf when I’m unavailable,” says Steer. “Reporter Tom Eastman recently got a good quote from US. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. She said, ‘I’ve seen some of the classified information that I can’t talk about, but I personally think there are unexplained phenomena that we haven’t yet figured out what’s going on.’ Frankly, the question is becoming more and more relevant in large part due to [Retired U.S. Navy Commander] David Fravor of Windham, N.H., who came forward with a bombshell UFO story in The New York Times.” aDavid Fravor, a retired Navy pilot from Windham, is famous for his UFO encounter during exercises off the California Coast in 2004. Fravor described a white, 40-foot-long Tic Tac-shaped object that outmaneuvered his F/A-18 Super Hornet without any visible wings or propulsion system.