The US mid-term elections have thrown up some oddballs as usual, and not just amongst the candidates. Some splendid nutjobs have managed to get local, area and statewide referenda on their ballot papers. Consider this lunacy from Denver, Colorado :

Ballot Initiative 300 would require the city to set up an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission, stocked with Ph.D. scientists, to “ensure the health, safety and cultural awareness of Denver residents” when it comes to future contact “with extraterrestrial intelligent beings or their vehicles.”


Promoting the initiative: Jeff Peckman, a silver-haired entrepreneur who lives with his parents. “Low overhead,” he explains. Mr. Peckman is a firm believer in intergalactic life, though he has never been personally contacted by an alien. That gives him more credibility, he says; it’s harder to dismiss him as biased. …


Initiative 300 made it to Tuesday’s ballot on the strength of roughly 4,000 voter signatures. It starts from the premise that intelligent aliens have been visiting Earth for decades, but the federal government has conspired to keep that quiet.


“We need to get this out of the realm of the Tooth Fairy and into the realm of diplomatic protocol,” says Ricky Butterfass, who works on the campaign.

Initiative 300 would require setting up an official commission and posting its findings on the city of Denver’s website.

Recognizing that ET contact protocols aren’t foremost in the minds of voters these days, Mr. Peckman has refined his pitch on Initiative 300. These days, he promotes it as a jobs bill.

Why would aliens be particularly likely to visit Denver? presumably because it’s the Mile High City, and consequently closer to outer space. Less of a journey. And if they are illegal aliens, they’ll be offered an amnesty.

So, faced with being a middle aged, single, lefty, jobless, living with your aged parents loser, he’s decided that the only way forward is lobbying the government to create an extraterrestrial ambassadorship just for him. Either that or he’s hoping for the anal probing thing.

Mr. Peckman didn’t have much luck with the last initiative he managed to put on the Denver ballot. That was a 2003 measure that would have required the city to “help ensure public safety by increasing peacefulness” through stress-reduction techniques such as mass meditation or the piping into public buildings of soothing primordial sounds. Voters rejected it.

This time, Mr. Peckman thinks he might pull it off. His campaign has its own rap song…

Ghost hunter Bryan Bonner apparently thinks Peckman is giving eccentrics a bad name. His website assures us that “Peckman and his ‘little green people’ are not representative of the people of Denver.”

“Little green people,” Mr. Peckman responds with outrage, is a “racial slur.”

We’ll hopefully bring you news on Wednesday if this was successful or not…

Hat-tip to Moonbattery