Wernher von Braun’s Alleged Alien Card Warning

The strategy that Wernher von Braun taught me was that first the Russians are going to be considered to be the enemy.

In fact, when I met him in 74, they were the enemy, the identified enemy.

We were told that they had killer satellites.

We were told that they were coming to get us and control us, the dirty commies, that whole story.

First, the Russians were the enemy against whom we're going to build space-based weapons.

Then terrorists would be identified, and that was soon to follow.

We heard a lot about terrorism. Then we were going to identify third-world country crazies.

We now call them nations of concern. But he said that would be the third enemy against whom we would be needing to build space-based weapons.

And the next enemy was asteroids. Now, at this point, he kind of chuckled the first time he said it.

Asteroids, against asteroids we're going to build space-based weapons.

So it was funny then. And the funniest one of all was against what he called aliens, extraterrestrials.

That would be the final card. And over and over and over during the four years that I knew him and was giving his speeches for him, he would bring up that last card and, "Remember, Carol, the last card is the alien card.

We're going to have to build space-based weapons against aliens."

And all of it, he said, is a lie. He didn't mention a timeline, but he said that it was going to be speeding up faster than anybody could possibly imagine, that the effort to put weapons in space was not only based on a lie,

but would accelerate past the point of people even understanding it until it was already up there and too late.