Governor Reagan's UAP Sighting — Pilot and Crew Report

On May 4, 1974, California Governor Ronald Reagan was aboard a Cessna Citation aircraft approaching Bakersfield, California, piloted by Bill Paynter and a co-pilot. Paynter observed a bright white light closing on the aircraft from behind. The light paced the Cessna Citation for several minutes. Paynter attempted to maneuver to observe it better. The object then accelerated at extreme speed and disappeared into the night sky within a second or two. Reagan described the encounter to Norman Miller of the Wall Street Journal shortly after the incident. The pilot Bill Paynter filed a written account of the event. Reagan told the story to TV producer Steven Spielberg in 1982. Reagan referenced the experience in his address to the United Nations General Assembly in 1987, where he posed the question of whether the world's nations could unite against an external threat from another world. Reagan told the story on multiple additional occasions to journalists, diplomats, and advisers; the accounts remained consistent. The pilot Bill Paynter confirmed the account in subsequent interviews. Paynter's formal written statement and Reagan's public accounts from 1974 onwards constitute one of the most public self-reported UAP sightings by a political leader who subsequently became President of the United States.