Key Takeaways
- George Clinton says he and Bootsy Collins saw mysterious beams strike the ground and their car near Toronto before realizing years later that they could not account for several hours.
- The P-Funk architect avoided sharing the story because of the duo’s reputation for drug use, but now says plainly, “I believe in spaceships.”
- Clinton also warned that AI and virtual reality will soon blur the line between real and simulated experiences: “You ain’t going to know what’s virtual and what’s not in a minute.”
George Clinton spent decades bringing the Mothership to Earth. Now the funk legend says his fascination with outer space was reinforced by something much stranger: an apparent UFO encounter with Bootsy Collins that left both musicians unable to account for hours of their day.
During an appearance on The Breakfast Club, Clinton recalled driving with Collins in the Toronto area when the pair noticed an unexplained light coming from the sky. Clinton said the encounter began in broad daylight, as they watched what looked like a laser descend from the clouds and hit the ground. Minutes later, he said, another burst appeared closer to them.
Then things got considerably weirder.
"Third one hit the car," Clinton recalled. "When it hit the car, it was like, you know, mercury in a thermometer. You know how it beads up and runs?"
According to Clinton, the substance appeared to roll off the vehicle as surrounding lights began shutting off. By the time they reached the street where he lived, however, it was dark—and neither man initially recognized anything unusual about the passage of time.
That realization didn't come until years later. Clinton remembered a young family member telling them she was going to bed when they arrived home, even though Clinton believed he and Collins had started their drive that morning.
"We didn't realize that until, as I said, 10 years, 11 years later," he said. After calling Collins to reconstruct the day, Clinton came away convinced something was missing: "There was time missing that didn't even occur to us."
For anyone familiar with Clinton's work, the extraterrestrial connection isn't exactly coming out of nowhere. Parliament/Funkadelic's mythology famously turned spaceships, aliens, and Afrofuturism into part of its identity, most memorably through the Mothership and the group's landmark 1975 album Mothership Connection.
Clinton told The Breakfast Club his interest stretched back even further, recalling the science-fiction movies he watched as a child and memories surrounding the cultural fascination with the 1947 Roswell incident.
Clinton also acknowledged why he and Collins weren't exactly eager to tell people about their alleged encounter at the time. "I never wanted to talk about it 'cause you sound stupid talking," he said, noting their reputation for drug use made the story even harder to sell.
But Clinton said he now has little hesitation about where he stands: "I believe in spaceships."
The story arrives during an eventful stretch for the 85-year-old P-Funk architect. Clinton sued Universal Music Group earlier this year, accusing the company of withholding more than $1.1 million in royalties from multiple accounts.
The dispute followed a separate legal battle with the estate of late Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell, which was revived by a federal appeals court in May after Clinton initially prevailed in 2025.
Meanwhile, Clinton's imagination remains pointed toward the future. During the same interview, he discussed artificial intelligence and virtual reality and predicted technology will soon make distinguishing reality from simulation increasingly difficult.
"You ain't going to know what's virtual and what's not in a minute," Clinton said.
