Obama Adviser Podesta's Main Regret: Not Disclosing the UFO Files

Outgoing Obama adviser John Podesta says he has one major regret about the past year: not telling Americans the truth about UFOs.

In a tweet on Friday, Podesta, whose fascination with UFOs and government investigations has been well-documented for years, named his regret over the secrecy his "number one" issue, reports Yahoo News.

1. Finally, my biggest failure of 2014: Once again not securing the #disclosure of the UFO files. #thetruthisstilloutthere cc: @NYTimesDowd

— John Podesta (@Podesta44) February 13, 2015

The UFO tweet was one of a series of messages Podesta posted Friday to tell followers of his 10 favorite memories, but the only tweet in which he expressed a regret. The others instead listed what he considers high points during his latest White House service.

Podesta didn't say whether he plans to follow his fascination for UFOs now that he's leaving the White House, like he did after his four years as President Bill Clinton's chief of staff.

Back in 2002, Yahoo News reports, Podesta spoke at a press conference that was organized by the Coalition for Freedom of Information, about the importance of sharing the information the government has about UFO investigations, saying "it’s time to find out what the truth really is that’s out there...we ought to do it, really, because it’s right. We ought to do it, quite frankly, because the American people can handle the truth. And we ought to do it because it’s the law.”

And on Friday, The Washington Post recalled when Podesta told one of its reporters in 2007 that "the truth is out there," concerning UFOs, echoing the tagline for the TV show, "The X-Files."

The reporter had asked Podesta if reports that the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Ark., had gotten Freedom of Information Act requests that sought email correspondence he'd written that included terms like "X-Files" and "Area 51."

Podesta also wrote an introduction to investigative journalist Leslie Kean's 2010 book "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record," saying that "it's time to find out what the truth really is that's out there. The American people — and people around the world — want to know, and they can handle the truth."

Podesta is leaving the White House to work as a senior adviser on Hillary Clinton's potential 2016 presidential campaign, but in his tweet, he appears to be passing his UFO concerns along to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who famously wrote her "We're Not Alone" column about the possiblity of a government UFO cover-up that compared certain Washington insiders to aliens in 1997.

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