What Did Steven Greer Say About Barry Goldwater and UFO Secrecy?

This article draws on our conversation with Steven Greer.

A senator, a reserve Air Force general, and a man with a reputation for being hard to intimidate still hit a wall when he tried to get answers about Goldwater UFO secrecy. Steven Greer used Barry Goldwater’s story to make a narrow but serious claim: the real issue was not curiosity about strange craft, but an apparatus so compartmentalized that even powerful elected officials were shut out.

He grounded that claim in one specific episode. Greer said Admiral Edmond told Senator Barry Goldwater something that put the fear of God in him, and that Goldwater never brought the matter up again. Greer added that his archive contains a letter from Goldwater about the incident, which he treated as part of the paper trail behind the story.

Why Barry Goldwater mattered to this story

Barry Goldwater mattered in this account because the hosts and Greer were not talking about a timid backbencher. They were talking about a senator with stature, a reserve Air Force general, and a public figure the hosts described as tough enough that the allegation of him being frozen out sounded startling on its face.

Dana Carvey and David Spade spent time sketching Goldwater’s character in plain terms. They described him as tough and, in today’s terms, closer to a libertarian than to the far-right religious image some people might lazily project backward onto him. That framing mattered because it set up the contrast Greer wanted: if someone with that profile still could not get access, then the barrier was bigger than personality, rank, or political confidence.

“He was the guy who told Nixon, you got to go.”

— Dana Carvey (1:00:33)

Carvey’s line sharpened the point. The man being discussed here was, in their telling, someone willing to confront presidential power directly. Greer’s argument leaned on exactly that reputation. Goldwater was not presented as naïve, weak, or easily brushed off; he was presented as the kind of official you would expect to push through resistance if ordinary constitutional authority still worked in that corner of government.

Instead, Greer said Goldwater was absolutely blocked. The force of the anecdote comes from the mismatch between the man and the result. If a senator who also held military status could not get in, Greer’s implication was that the door was not merely closed to the public. It was closed to people who, on paper, looked like they should have standing to ask.

What Steven Greer said happened in the 60s

Steven Greer said Barry Goldwater was blocked in the 60s from getting access to the information he wanted, and he used that moment to argue that the secrecy system had already moved outside normal oversight by then (1:01:06). In his telling, the key figure in the story was Admiral Edmond, whose warning or response ended the matter so completely that Goldwater never raised the subject again.

Greer did not present the anecdote as a colorful side story. He used it as evidence for a structure: compartmentalization so tight that formal position no longer guaranteed access. A senator could ask. A reserve Air Force general could ask. Neither status changed the answer.

He pushed the point wider by tying it to time. Greer said the whole train had been out of control, off the tracks, since almost when he was born in 1955 (1:01:09). That detail was not there to build biography. It was there to mark duration. His claim was that this was not a recent bureaucratic excess or a short-lived Cold War corner case. In his telling, the system had been operating this way for decades.

“It was a God damn mistake then, and a God damn mistake now, that this was ever kept secret.”

— Steven Greer (57:20)

That sentence carried Greer’s actual complaint. He was not just saying secrecy existed. He was saying the secrecy itself became the problem, because once the information was pushed into heavily protected compartments, even people inside government could no longer test, question, or control what had been hidden.

What the Goldwater anecdote was meant to prove

The Goldwater story was meant to show that alleged UFO secrecy, as Greer described it, could defeat democratic oversight even at a very high level. His use of the anecdote was simple: if Barry Goldwater could not penetrate the system, then the system had separated itself from the normal chain of accountability.

That is why the hosts’ comments about Goldwater’s temperament were not a side note. They helped explain why they found the claim striking. A tough senator with military credentials is exactly the kind of figure most listeners would assume could at least get briefed, or at minimum force a clearer refusal. Greer’s version of events said the opposite. Goldwater was stopped so firmly that the subject died there.

Greer also made the anecdote concrete by saying he has a letter from Goldwater in his archive about the episode. Within his argument, that detail served one purpose: to present the story as something attached to a document, not just a rumor floating around Washington lore.

So the function of the story was larger than Barry Goldwater himself. Greer used him as the test case for the whole system. If an elected official with rank, name recognition, and a reputation for backbone still could not get through, then the secrecy apparatus he described was, in his account, operating beyond the reach of the very people voters would expect to be in charge.

FAQ

What did Steven Greer say about Barry Goldwater?

Steven Greer said Barry Goldwater tried to get access to hidden information and was blocked. He said Admiral Edmond told Goldwater something so severe that Goldwater never raised the subject again, and Greer added that his archive contains a letter from Goldwater about it.

Why is Barry Goldwater important in this story?

Barry Goldwater was important because he was not presented as a marginal figure. The hosts described him as tough, politically independent in temperament, and willing to confront power, which made the claim that he was shut out more significant in Greer’s argument.

What role did Admiral Edmond play?

Greer said Admiral Edmond was the person who told Goldwater something that put the fear of God in him. In Greer’s telling, that exchange ended Goldwater’s effort to pursue the matter.

How did Greer connect this to government secrecy?

Greer used the story to argue that compartmentalized secrecy had long operated outside normal democratic oversight. His point was that even a senator and reserve Air Force general could allegedly be denied access.

Did the hosts agree with Greer’s wider claim?

The material here shows the hosts discussing Goldwater’s character and why the anecdote struck them. Their role in this part of the discussion was to underline how unusual it sounded that someone with Goldwater’s stature could be blocked so completely.