Sophie Shevardnadze is the presenter of SophieCo on Russian satellite TV station, RT. Normally SophieCo is a sedate affair. Recent guests have included social entrepreneur and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and former First Lady of France Cécilia Attias. All pretty worthy, if not humdrum, and, well, normal.

This week Sophie had the privilege of interviewing one Paul Hellyer, a former Minister for Defence of the Canadian Government. Born in 1923, Hellyer became Canada’s youngest Member of Parliament in 1949, and that country’s youngest cabinet minister in 1957. At a later stage he served in Cabinet under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, eventually becoming Senior Minister (the post that is now Deputy PM). Among other things, he was noted for having contested the leadership of the Liberal Party against Trudeau in 1968, and for having unified the Canadian Armed Forces while Minister for Defence.

In introducing him onto SophieCo, Shevardnadze had the following little titbit to add to his bio:

He became the first cabinet-level politician from a G8 country to publicly state that there is extra-terrestrial life present on Earth.

Yep, he’s one of those. Have a look for yourself here:

Here are some of the best bits:

(1:27) “As a matter of fact, [extra-terrestrials] have been visiting our planet for thousands of years…”

(3:36) “They have landed in various places around the world, including Russia. There’s a famous case there, I can’t remember the name of the place, but it was widely reported at the time. A man wrote a book about it, and then the French bought the book rights so that it wouldn’t be circulated around. There’s just so much evidence.”

(8:10) “I don’t know if you are a person who’s ever read the Bible or not, but I think the Star of Bethlehem was one of God’s flying saucers.”

(8:41) “The first question you have to ask is ‘How many species are there?’ And I used to think there were between 2 and 12…But the latest reports that I have been given from various sources is that there are around 80 different species.”

(9:31) “A couple of their ladies, dressed as nuns, went in to Las Vegas to shop. They weren’t detected.”

(10:26) “If you saw the Short Greys you’d certainly know there was something up that you’d never seen before. But if you saw one of the Nordic Blondes, why you’d probably say, ‘Oh I wonder is she from Denmark, or somewhere?’ You know.”

(15:46) “There are actually extra-terrestrials who live on a planet called ‘Andromedia’, which is one of the moons of Saturn, and that there are others on Venus and some on Mars. They may be interacting between themselves. I suspect that they are because there is what is called a ‘Federation’ of these people…”

(16:52) “They have accepted the fact this is our planet and that we have the right to run it, but they’re very very concerned. They don’t think we’re very good stewards of our planet.”

(17:21) “As a matter of fact, they have given us a warning. And this has come from more than one source.”

(17:34) “One of the chaps I talked to about a month ago was interacting with them in 1974, he and his brother, in Peru, and they were taken to Andromedia — teleported — and they were told what the people there think: that we’re really wrecking our planet and in fact that something dreadful is going to happen to it if we don’t smarten up and change our ways.”

(20:20) “A lot of the things that we use today we got from them, you know: LED lights, and microchips, and Kevlar vests — and all sorts of things that we got from their technology.”

(23:20) “Our future as a species, and here I mean all of the species in the world, are potentially at risk if we don’t figure out what’s going on and work together to try and make life more amenable for all of us, and to work with our neighbours from other planets as well.”

As if nuns and Danish people weren’t under enough scrutiny.

No more war, please. You have all been warned.

Brian Hughes

Brian Hughes is an academic psychologist and university professor in Galway, Ireland, specialising in stress, health, and the application of psychology to social issues. He writes widely on the psychology of empiricism and of empirically disputable claims, especially as they pertain to science, health, medicine, and politics.