ET wasn’t mentioned in the Democratic nominee’s acceptance speech, but Clinton’s campaign manager has an out-of-this world agenda.

Questions surrounding Hillary Clinton’s credibility keep surfacing. Her latest effort to shore up voter confidence took a curious turn earlier this week when the Clinton campaign accused her GOP rival of conspiring with Vladimir Putin. The Russians, according to Clinton camp, are meddling in domestic politics.

The claims were prompted by emails allegedly ripped off by Russian hackers and released by Wikileaks. The purloined messages reveal how the Democratic National Committee planned to sabotage the Bernie Sanders campaign.

In reaction, Clinton backers are accusing Republican candidate Donald J. Trump of fear mongering, but they themselves appear to be using dated Red Scare tactics to distract the electorate. It’s a page out of the Cold War playbook and enough to alienate voters of all persuasions.

These are trivial issues, however, compared to the longstanding concerns of  John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman.

Podesta is an outspoken advocate for releasing classified data on UFOs.  Clinton herself was asked about the issue during the New Hampshire primary race in December and responded that she intended to get to the bottom of it once she was in the Oval Office. Clinton said she believed that the earth has already been visited by aliens, but nobody is sure. She reiterated her pledge to seek more governmental transparency in a late night appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Show in March. On that occasion, Clinton informed the TV host that the term UFO is now an anachronism. ““You know, there’s a new name,” she said.  “It’s unexplained aerial phenomenon. UAP. That’s the latest nomenclature.”

During her husband’s presidency, Bill Clinton went on the record as saying he checked out top-secret Area 51 files and found no evidence of extraterrestrial visitations, but he wouldn’t rule out the possibility that they have or will occur.  The Clintons’ casual comments on the subject were initially not taken seriously. But that seems to have changed in recent months, mainly because there is little doubt that Podesta, their longtime confidante, is a serious true believer. In a Las Vegas television interview conducted in March, Podesta said  that Hillary Clinton assured him that if she wins the presidency she will expedite the release of classified documents pertaining to UFOs.

Podesta served as President Bill Clinton’s assistant and deputy chief of staff. He is also a Democratic lobbyist, and the founder with his brother Tony of the Podesta Group.   In 2014, Pedestal joined the Obama administration acting as a presidential counsel on global warming and climate change. When he left that post to join the Clinton campaign, he tweeted that his biggest regret was his failure to persuade the administration to declassify  UFO documents.