A former deputy prime minister and defence minister is now speaking in the U.S. about UFO coverups and how alien technology could benefit mankind.
Paul Hellyer, who was defence minister under Lester B. Pearson and ran for the Liberal leadership in 1968, is scheduled to speak at the UFO Congress on Saturday in Phoenix, Ariz.
In a recent interview with AOL News, Hellyer said that he believes he has seen UFOs before and that the U.S. has alien technology they are covering up and researching.
"Oh, I'm absolutely convinced of it.
"These things were not invented here. And I think people have to get accustomed to this new reality," he told the online news source.
"We lived too long in a sense of isolation, thinking that Earth was the centre of the cosmos, that we were the only species and, therefore, probably the most advanced.
"And when we come to the realization that we're not any of those things, then I think we should be aware of it, learn to live with it and certainly try to take advantage of anything that we can learn from visitors from anywhere."
Last April, Hellyer published a book on the subject called Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Survival Plan for the Human Species. In the publisher's description of the book, it notes "exotic energy sources already exist. They have been developed by the U.S. 'shadow government ' at the massive underground 'black operation' installations in Nevada and Arizona using technology borrowed from visitors from other planets."
Hellyer is speaking at the UFO convention on Saturday and his bio on that organization's website says he "has been outspoken on the U.S. government's withholding of UFO information and as well as its aggressive stance on the extraterrestrial presence."
In his interview with AOL, he was asked if he would be as up-front with his beliefs if he were still the Canadian defence minister today.
"I would probably be open-mouthed about it and I might get fired for it," he replied.
"I've always been pretty open and direct, so unless there was some reason which I can't conceive of, I wouldn't try to hide the existence of the extraterrestrials and their presence."
