Part 1 Eisenhower's Close Encounters ... Airbase Air Space ...The Ike We Liked

Eisenhower's Close Encounters 

By Paul Blake Smith

PROLOGUE 

The Greatest Story Never Told “This really is a great story!” A podcast host recently blurted this out during an otherwise calm conversation, recorded live, on the air, and currently available as an internet video. 

“It is!” the broadcast program's guest, a UFO author, replied enthusiastically. Listening to this, I could practically hear the excited grins and childlike wonder from these two mature adults when talking for a few minutes about the near-legendary allegation. The out of this world legend about the late American President Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) secretly meeting with landed, friendly alien beings in seemingly sleepy 1954. 

I had to agree with the two men on the podcast. I first heard of the mind-blowing claim in 1985. To me, it's like “the greatest story never told,” in a sense. Why? Because no one has ever really put the tale together properly in a sane, sober, complete nonfiction book, separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. When you remove the exaggerated fiction and keep the firm facts, it ends up being, well, the most amazing and electrifying historical drama, ever. After years of researching the story, I have discovered there was much more to it than just Eisenhower being surprised to hear aliens had suddenly landed not far away and wanting to chat. It's past time this staggering, well-planned, classified event was told in an evenhanded, non-hysterical manner, all while jettisoning inaccurate conspiracy theories that have recently larded it down. 

When searching in the early part of the new century for full-length books about the amazing UFO crash recovery by the U.S. Army in 1941, just outside my hometown of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, I was stunned to find there wasn’t a single one published. So by 2011 I decided to do something about it – by researching and writing it myself. I collected all of the available data, did my own investigating, and began piecing together the seventy-year-old tale as best I could. “MO41, The Bombshell Before Roswell: The Case for a Missouri 1941 UFO Crash” took me over four years to research, write, edit, and rewrite, resulting in so much material I created a second book that same year (2016), “3 Presidents, 2 Accidents: More MO41 UFO Data and Surprises.” 

During that book research, I kept stumbling into this scant but very exciting rumor about the United States president and aliens huddling on a desert air base runway under the cover of darkness. The extraterrestrials allegedly put on quite a thrill-show. But that may well have not been the end of such contact, nor the start of it. More direct communication might have been going on, with or without President Eisenhower, as we shall see. Again, I was so intrigued I naturally wanted to find and read a full-length book about it. I started searching around but once again I couldn't find any such publication – so I decided once more to research and write one myself. I had started to piece together the tale in the mid-1990s, then stopped, but kept my data in a file. Then in early 2017 I got started once more, but stopped now and then during the next two years, to tend to other writing projects. 

Just like the “MO41” case, I found that almost every adult from the staggering '54 UFO human-alien “summit” saga was long since deceased, and in some cases so were their children. Not good, but I'd dealt with that hurdle before. 

To make matters worse, I noticed that some UFO/ET websites which aired thumbnail sketches on Eisenhower and the landed aliens often seemed to get carried away with frightening claims of evil, scheming “grays;” brutal kidnappings and spaceship examinations; and an imminent otherworldly invasion, with “read more here.” Pure “click-bait,” as it is dubbed. Plus, several sources just seemed to simply parrot what they had heard third-hand elsewhere, perhaps adding a few scary creative touches of their own. A mild-mannered, diligent UFO researcher from Canada, Grant Cameron, put it into perspective when he stated in 2012: “Most of the Eisenhower contact stories seem a little far-fetched and may well be the creations of the minds” of those who passed them along, with personal agendas affecting the story (negatively). I tried to avoid falling into such traps, clinging often to actual leaked government document quotes on extraterrestrials to guide me. And along the way, I did my best to relate everything honestly and fairly, with no intention of misleading or influencing anyone down the wrong path. 

From 2017 to the first three months of Corona Virus-plagued 2020, I scoured web pages; magazines; TV shows on videotape; various book chapters; historical biographies; digitized Oval Office logs; online old newspapers; modern paranormal online message forums; and YouTube documentaries for more clues and claims. I placed some calls and sent some e-mails. I became aware that in 2004 – the 50th anniversary of the Eisenhower-ET event - the normally-complacent U.S. media e-mailed the late president's surviving son (a virtual lookalike for his father) for a comment. A fine military historian and author in his own right, he simply replied “no” at the time to the alien allegation, which he was likely never fully explained to him in the first place, not even by his dad, having no “need to know.” John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower (1922-2013) passed away years later without further comment. Knowing that his father allegedly somberly swore all present to strict secrecy on the night of the event, this negative response didn't bother me. 

A few contemporary sources touched briefly upon the tale. A fictional novel was crafted in 2013 by author John Romero, creatively turning the ET contact saga into a kind of sci-fi world war with a psychic's help, apparently, but I still haven't found a copy of “The Eisenhower Enigma” to read. In early 2020, a well-reviewed independent film written and directed by Christopher Munch, called “The 11 th Green,” explored Dwight's interest in aliens and the “urban legend” that he “had one or more face-to-face interactions” with them. “The History Channel's “Ancient Aliens” has aired the presidential-extraterrestrial tale, not once, but twice, yet in scant detail, the most recent in a spring 2020 episode. Somewhat the same can be said of the syndicated television program “Unsealed: Alien Files” when reporting the tale (featuring very tall humanoids) in 2013. The Mutual UFO Network’s series on the History Channel, “MUFON, Hangar 1,” mentioned in 2014’s premiere episode that in their headquarters - filled with “70,000 files” - there existed “numerous eyewitness accounts” which told of the Eisenhower event. But the problem is that MUFON does not open its files to the public, and I was not a member of the club. I began to realize why no one had ever really produced a solid book on the topic; it was tough going for any writer with no first-hand eyewitness accounts, the trail having gone cold for decades now. 

I dutifully kept writing and polishing (albeit somewhat part-time), adding more and more information from various resources, cramming it all full of checkable facts, and fleshing out thirteen total chapters (plus two chapters I ended up eliminating). Along the way, I added a little eye-catching new data to the fairly well-known Richard Nixon-Jackie Gleason UFO encounter at an American airbase in 1973 (Chapter Eleven). Stunningly, that famous duo's amazing experience took place, allegedly, on the exact 19th anniversary of the Eisenhower ET encounter. Were the two tales somehow related? In a special “Top Ten List,” I show that it's very possible. 

Another question kept nagging: is there a smoking gun, any paperwork around today to help prove the 1954 encounter case? It turns out that rumors have been floating about for decades that President Eisenhower – and likely an aide – put pen to paper that year and drew up a special agreement with the extraterrestrial visitors. At some point, this secret treaty was signed and handed over, without the notice or approval of the United States Congress (which would make it constitutionally illegal and unenforceable). To find out more, into a computer search engine I entered the words “Eisenhower alien treaty.” One of the phrases that came back read “ten-year agreement.” Then I read the mentions of Dwight's so-called “Greada Treaty,” or “Plato Pact,” or “Alien Accords,” and when that was Googled the computer came back with “1954 to 1964.” In clicking on various sites listed for that time-frame, none of them seemed to give any real replies or details, however. No genuine explanation for this specific timing. What was this ten-year accord? Why did someone feel that a decade was the length of a contract resulting from the shocking alien encounter? Frustratingly, I could not find any direct answers. However, when I did some further online snooping for the year 1964, a startling new piece of the puzzle revealed itself. I uncovered something other UFO researchers had not, that is if my hunch is correct. Interesting data about another American president, a powerful politico who knew, liked, and worked with President Eisenhower in the 1950s (see Chapter Eleven). After all, they were both born and raised on poor rural Texas farms (before Eisenhower's family moved to Kansas). 

Additionally, I found that back in February of 1954, a very famous world leader suddenly developed a tremendous urge to meet with the American president – just the two of them, with no aides nearby – to discuss something so explosive it has never been revealed to this day (see Chapter Nine). I also learned that a very dogged and intrepid UFO researcher (now deceased) discovered that President Eisenhower had more than one airbase encounter, with another taking place in 1955. Dwight quietly flew to New Mexico for more direct communications with landed extraterrestrials that “year after contact” (see Chapter Ten). I additionally came to understand that the dashing but doomed American president immediately following Eisenhower also made a trek to still smallish Palm Springs, to Dwight's door, in 1962 (see Chapter Eleven). 

Helping me out was a remarkable digitized document from early 1989, leaked in mid-2017, sparking debate on its authenticity but seemingly revealing fresh clues as to yet another presidential alien situation, one that I was not familiar with. An amazing claim from within this controversial report mentioning President Harry Truman in 1948-'49 could seemingly have set the foundation for the '54-'55 Eisenhower encounters with his hush-hush ET meeting (see Chapter Three). Was this the very first presidential live alien encounter?

In my research, I also relied at times on advice and sometimes data from three smart, perceptive ladies: author Patricia Baker, host of the “Supernatural Girlz” podcast; researcher/author Linda Moulton Howe, host of “Earthfiles;” and Heather Wade, host of “The Kingdom of Nye.” A great big “thank you!” to these three dedicated seekers of truth, and also to the congenial and dedicated Ryan Sprague, for his fitting Foreword. 

In March of 2020, I watched a unique video for the first time, just posted to the internet. It was of Linda, recently speaking to a group about a 2015-'16 case of an American who claimed to received messages from an alien race in binary code, translated by a Ph.D. geneticist. One stunning section of it read as follows: “Ike's embedded citizens are ready. Disclose. Evolve.” Howe interpreted this puzzler as a reference to President Eisenhower and noted the next line mentioned “Emerther,” an alleged ET race supposedly known to Eisenhower (as explained a bit further in Chapter Eleven). It is all certainly up for debate, but... was this a prophetic reference to this very book? 

To be candid and clear, I fully admit that the 2/19/54 case I lay out herein relies on a good deal of second-hand (or even third) claims and overall faith, not hard, tangible evidence. Anecdotal allegations, speculation, and hearsay are collected herein, yes, but much of it is fairly corroborative and very enticing. Strong supportive proof may well exist but remains still sadly elusive as of 2020, buried under mountains (and decades) of government secrecy and classification regulations. Hence, I put together as best I could this detailed “compendium” utilizing as many named sources and authors as reasonably possible, so now the reader can decide on the mind numbing tale's merit. And yes, in summation I must candidly point out that although my case presented herein is a circumstantial one, many a court trial is won on this sort of circumstantial evidence alone. By the end of the book, I am confident you'll be swayed by the case I put forward; it was enough to convince me and I'm a fairly cynical, skeptical sort. 

“President Eisenhower's Close Encounters” is now presented for your approval, airing a fresh perspective on the most amazing and exciting sagas ever – if true (and I think it is). Please keep an open mind and judge for yourselves... 

Paul Blake Smith 

southern Missouri 

March 17, 2020 – St. Patrick's Day 

(final revisions on September 7, 2020 – Labor Day)

INTRODUCTION 

Setting the Stage 

On January 21, 1953, Americans watched (or listened via radio) as its military-minded new president was sworn into office, their 34th , vowing somberly “to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States.” Dwight David Eisenhower settled into the business of governing while ending America’s involvement in the distant, frustrating Korean War. It was a fairly quiet, slow-paced, but effective start by the new administration, that first year. Eisenhower's military efforts in southeast Asia were coming around nicely, and peace was established in war-torn Korea. The troops were coming home. The economy stabilized, relatively. Union strikes and social unrest were nearly nonexistent. In retrospect, things seemed pretty peaceful, on the surface. 

According to UFO researchers, the first year of the Eisenhower administration also saw a quartet of alleged ET crashes that the American military rushed to cover up. Although hushed at the time, some eyewitnesses spoke up decades later. One particular instance from 1953 occurred in New Mexico, near the White Sands, New Mexico, “proving grounds” for the first atom bomb detonation (“Trinity”) in the summer of '45. “Four bodies were recovered” from the alien disc in the sandy soil, supposedly. In May of 1953, investigators allege, a UFO crash-landed outside of Kingman, Arizona, with at least one four-foot-tall, brownish dead alien found with the wreckage. In Utah that same year, an alien spacecraft allegedly crashed near government property and has proven difficult to research to this day. Yet another under-investigated but tantalizing claim in 1953 pinpoints an area “some miles northwest of Great Falls, Montana,” involving a swift government/Air Force cover-up with at least one dead alien body recovered from the debris, possibly more. {Some sourcing from “Majik Eyes Only,” by author Ryan S. Wood.} 

Perhaps understandably, by December of 1953, a new rule was put into place thanks to the protective Pentagon and new president's input. It was a hideously restrictive law that would have an impact to this day. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff issued “Army-Navy-Air Force Publication #146” which stated that anyone who allowed the unauthorized release of information concerning UFOs was committing a grave crime covered within the Espionage Act, which could result in ten years in prison and a substantial fine. American servicemen of all ranks were likely made aware of this action and might have been understandably reluctant to discuss or disclose extraterrestrial crash recovery facts. It could cost them just about everything. 

We can thus see that government secrecy at most any cost - on ETs and UFOs especially - was going to continue under the new, button-down Eisenhower administration. Authoritarian Dwight was used to army discipline and no back-talk. Private citizens were likely not generally aware of the new rules in effect for silence on UFOs and ETs, but were any alien visitors themselves? All we know is that in theory, an extraterrestrial spaceship’s controlled landing on a secure American military base or a secluded government facility would have been ideal – and that is just what has been alleged, taking place less two months after the new extraterrestrial rule went into place. Coincidence? Or part of an overall, developing strategy for an eventual, well-planned, sustained “First Contact,” as some may call it? 

Keeping this strict clamp-down in mind... to understand the main Eisenhower-extraterrestrial encounter saga from February of 1954, we'll set the scene by mentioning that after a full year in power, Chief Executive Eisenhower was oddly ready for not one, but two sporting vacations in that cold, dreary winter month. The first was to travel with the First Lady to sleepy Thomasville, Georgia, to hunt quail with some friends, including Dwight's remarkably wealthy Secretary of the Treasury, who owned the out-of-the-way plantation famous for gamebirding. They were likely protected by a familiar and trusted special unit of Georgia State troopers (see in Chapter Ten), a low-key team of six men that might have played a significant security role a week later. President Eisenhower happily posed for news photographers with his host and Georgia farm staffers, holding up his downed game birds. The trip had been fun and worthwhile to him, seemingly, but was there another, hidden purpose for going? 

Soon after those chilly, damp days in Georgia, Dwight Eisenhower returned to his White House duties while also readying for a very different vacation: a long-planned golfing trip to warmer, drier climes. The First Couple had been plotting for over a year with old friends to visit golf-crazy Palm Springs in southern California. But it sure seemed like a long, long way to go just to hit the links and shoot some birdies, not actual birds, and loaf at taxpayers' expense. 

So it was that President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wife; a few personal and professional aides; and some Secret Service guards were packed and ready to go on February 17, 1954, departing Washington D.C. that chilly afternoon aboard a shiny, silver aircraft, headed west, into the wild blue yonder, looking forward to a relaxing and seemingly uneventful Golden State getaway. 

CHAPTER ONE 

Airbase Air Space 

“Five different spaceships landed on the base runway.” 

— "Sergeant X" 

It seems ridiculous and far-fetched at first, does it not, the whole idea that a United States president could secretly take off one night while on vacation and go meet extraterrestrials – and keep it a secret for several decades? Before we dig into the juicy details of this mind boggling allegation, let's first consider a story that came bursting out in the international media in 2010, having its seed planted in 1999, but originating from way back in 1940s' Europe. 

It seems that in September of 1999, a scientist wishing to remain anonymous wrote a letter to the United Kingdom's Defense Minister, describing what his grandfather once related, regarding a World War II experience that his surviving family desired more information. Over a decade later the missive was leaked to the press. It seems the grandparent had allegedly said that during his World War II experience while acting as a trusted R.A.F. bodyguard, he overheard nearby British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) discuss a most remarkable topic. The great allied leader was conferring in England with five-star American General Dwight D. Eisenhower about a strange, metallic “Unidentified Flying Object” that had been recently buzzing a Royal Air Force reconnaissance plane, flying over the British coastline, allegedly on August 5, 1944. The “UFO” was buzzing about at speeds greater than any man-made airplane, accelerating and darting around in the sky unlike anything seen before. 

It was undoubtedly otherworldly since not even the Americans or Germans had unveiled any sort of super-advanced aerial craft like this. The R.A.F. airplane's crew supposedly photographed the foreign, active craft, which “hovered noiselessly” over their vehicle for a while before soaring into the wild, blue yonder. Churchill and Eisenhower exchanged private comments on the bizarre “foo-fighter,” as UFOs were often dubbed in the 1940s. Then the bodyguard heard Mr. Churchill make a rather chilling statement: “This event should be immediately classified as it would create mass panic amongst the general population, and destroy one's belief in the church.” Supposedly Churchill wanted the topic kept secret for at least fifty years, and then “have its status reviewed by a future prime minister.” And Eisenhower agreed. 

It would seem this secrecy-at-all-costs approach stuck with the very un-progressive, play-it-safe Dwight Eisenhower. He never discussed the startling WWII UFO case with anyone further. Dwight had very likely heard still other tales of “daylight discs” and phantom “Foo Fighters” during the war. He kept it all under his hat, so to speak, as to not upset the apple-cart. It was just plain unacceptable to admit that allied forces didn't control even friendly home airspace, let alone the rest of the planet. 

Unfortunately, the British government near the turn of the twenty first century claimed it was unable to find any supporting evidence for this particular wartime UFO incident. The R.A.F. bodyguard near the famous duo had supposedly told his daughter, then age nine, some of the high-level conversation around the time of the incident, so she would remember the tale and keep it secret until some point after the war (in case her father didn’t survive). The young woman did hold the allegation private initially but discussed it with family members decades later, and thus it was brought up (in letter form) by her son, the curious astrophysicist – the R.A.F. man’s highly educated grandson. The unfinished tale appears lost to history unless secret files are someday officially released or leaked. However, it should be noted that on December 13, 1944, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe – with “Ike” overall in charge – issued a press release mentioning some similar strange aerial sightings but dubbed them “a new German weapon.” The data was published in the New York Times the next day, but busy General Eisenhower likely had no input on this statement and the topic was not again mentioned by Allied Powers in the slightest. 

So bearing this long-hushed tale in mind, let's now review a kind of “Top Ten List” of admittedly sketchy but riveting clues and claims that say the greatest presidential adventure of all time happened and was effectively covered up for many decades - just like what Dwight Eisenhower conspired to do with Winston Churchill in 1945. Here we go, in no particular order... 

#1.) Gabriel Green (1924-2001) made a minor name for himself in southern California during the 1950s as an open-minded UFO investigator who publicly alleged to have experienced contact of his own with landed, friendly extraterrestrial beings. This made Gabe an early “contactee,” or to some Americans, a “kook.” Mr. Green hailed from Whittier, the hometown of Richard Nixon, who was of course Dwight Eisenhower's vice president and later a chief executive on his own. In day-to-day reality, Gabriel was a simple Los Angeles area school photographer and a college-educated World War II veteran. 

Green claimed that one day – probably in 1954 – a U.S. serviceman contact him and requested anonymity for his tale of something quite unusual recently while stationed at Edwards Air Force Base, about ninety miles northeast of Los Angeles. 

“Sergeant X” - as we'll call him - claimed he was working with a platoon at the Edwards gunnery range one afternoon. The specific drill consisted of firing artillery shells at distant targets set up in the wide-open desert. The sergeant's squad that day was under the personal command of a general, one we'll call “General Z.” Suddenly, five highly unusual spacecraft floated down out of the sky and moved over the artillery field, much to the busy soldiers' shock. Shiny and silver, glinting in the sun, these different-sized crafts. This was no drill. 

General Z coldly ordered the men to turn their guns on the unidentified flying objects, and they promptly did so despite being quite alarmed and amazed. All watched flabbergasted as the exploding shells had no impact on the UFO squadron whatsoever. These were highly dangerous and effective weapons normally, but in the case of the odd spaceships that descended that day, they were completely useless, not leaving a mark. Deeply impressed, General Z eventually ordered a cease-fire, the entire outfit probably standing there stunned and speechless, like never before in their lives. As the slack-jawed unit watched, the unexpected squadron of strange airships - two cigar-shaped and three rounded or saucer-like in design, the sarge said - moved quietly through the airbase air space and landed on a runway near a large aircraft hangar. 

The men were hustled from the scene and sworn to silence, and that was all Sergeant X knew. But he was bursting to tell someone who knew about such supernatural things, thus his unauthorized and likely covert contact with Gabriel Green. 

All during the 1950s, President Eisenhower kept his lips tightly sealed on aliens possibly visiting here. Officially, “UFOs” and “flying saucers” were just silly, easily-dismissed mistaken identities, or so the U.S. government alleged. So disgusted was Gabriel Green that he decided to run for president to replace Eisenhower in 1960! 

In his 1960 campaign flier, entitled “Independent Non-Partisan Write-In Candidate for President,” Green issued the following party statement: “We affirm that flying saucers are real, that in reality, they are true spacecraft manned by people from other planets, who are visiting and making contact with various persons on our planet to impart information which can be used for the benefit of all men of earth. We deplore the actions of our government in withholding information on this subject.” This certainly sounds like a direct shot by Mr. Green at the Eisenhower administration regarding the Edwards Airbase landing event. “They're here to help us help ourselves,” Gabriel told a radio interview in August of 1960. He called upon – expressed in his write-in presidential campaign fliers and posters - the creation of a special panel of newsmen to declassify and release governmental secrets on ETs to the public. {Green's other proposed policies included the abolishing of taxes, free college educations, and creating spaceship missions to Mars. He also ran for president again in 1972 – against incumbent Richard Nixon - with these themes in mind.} 

Overall Gabriel Green may have sounded a bit wacky in his day, but he might have been onto something and quite “ahead of his time,” as we'll see... 

#2.) Desmond Arthur Peter Leslie (1921-2001) spoke at length in mid-1954 to a reporter for the military magazine Valor. Mr. Leslie was a UFO investigator and writer, an English gentleman who toured America in '54, including Southern California. But Desmond Leslie was no ordinary probing overseas journalist. Desmond was a second cousin to Winston Churchill and a former Royal Air Force pilot who loyally and expertly flew fighter jets in World War II. 

In their October 9, 1954 issue, Mr. Leslie is quoted by Valor's reporter as having visited the Edwards AFB vicinity that summer, speaking to some of the soldiers stationed there. An Air Force officer – we’ll call “Lieutenant Y” - told Desmond that he had been at the airbase during the previous winter and witnessed a round spaceship coming down out of the sky and landing on a runway not too far away! The lieutenant said it was about one hundred feet in diameter, and that the base was quickly put on high alert and suddenly sealed off. No one was allowed to leave for any reason, Y alleged, and those soldiers who were already off the grounds on a pass or approved leave were stopped at the front gate upon their return, given their possessions, and told to “beat it.” Mr. Leslie stated that he began questioning others discreetly at Edwards and learned to his satisfaction that an ET event did indeed occur, and that the spacecraft was placed under guard inside Hangar #27. Desmond's main source said he had even briefly “seen the craft” resting in the hangar. Possibly multiple sources leaked the startling secret to the visiting British writer, perhaps many doing so anonymously. {Source: “Alien Contact” by Timothy Good.} 

It could be that Mr. Leslie was trusted with the interplanetary summit information as he was already somewhat of an expert on UFOs and ETs. He had, after all, just co-authored a book with Polish American alleged “contactee” George Adamski (1891-1965), published in 1953. It was entitled – most presciently – “Flying Saucers Have Landed.” Part of this book was about Adamski encountering a pair of friendly, human-like aliens who supposedly landed their spaceship outside of Los Angeles, in the Mojave Desert, for contact and communication! 

At any rate, the upshot from the autumn '54 military magazine article is Desmond Leslie's foremost finding: President Eisenhower was notified of the landed alien presence at Edwards and arrived straightaway that very night, from his nearby vacation in Palm Springs. Supposedly the popular president got a good look at everything otherworldly in hushed, secure conditions. 

It is worth noting that Mr. Leslie once co-wrote a B-movie screenplay, “Stranger From Venus,” which was about a human looking alien emerging from a crashed ET flying saucer. The script was produced in mid-1954 and premiered in the United Kingdom in late December that year, but had no U.S. release, suspiciously. The extraterrestrial character in the film comes to warn people about the dangers of the atomic bomb and continued nuclear testing, and that if mankind were to put an end to these weapons of mass destruction and wars in general, it would receive great scientific insight from his fellow advanced extraterrestrials. This (fictional?) plot appears to contain amazing insight into the Eisenhower “secret summit,” as we shall later see. 

#3.) Harold T. Wilkins (1891-1960) was a Cambridge-educated journalist and author who said he too learned the story of five different otherworldly crafts coming down for a landing at Edwards AFB with an Eisenhower covert inspection. The tale was received from a letter sent to him “from a friend in California” in April of '54 (probably Mr. Gerald Light; see Chapter Nine). Wilkins wrote a bit about the Eisenhower-ET assertion within his book, “Flying Saucers Uncensored,” released in 1955. It was probably the very first book to bring up the astounding topic. “These five saucers landed voluntarily at this Edwards Air Force Base. They were discs of different types and their entities invited technicians and scientists to inspect” the advanced alien aerial technology, Wilkins claimed in print. Harold's Golden State pal alleged that he gathered data from three different sources at Edwards Air Base, none of which he named, perhaps fearing harsh repercussions for all when violating U.S. military secrecy oaths. 

The problem with Wilkins' believability was his perpetual public passion for peculiar paranormal pablum, such as an innocent belief in the lost continent of Atlantis; the hollow-Earth theory; and a vanished race of white people in South America, none of which were ever proven true. Still, Mr. Wilkins was a fairly respected pioneer in his day in seriously relating UFO sightings and stories and bringing the idea of ET interaction to the public consciousness, through his entertaining books. 

#4.) Francis “Frank” Scully (1892-1964) was a 1950s supernatural-theme author and columnist for Variety magazine. Having a passion for UFOs, Frank penned “Behind the Flying Saucers” in 1950. He wrote in his folksy column the astonishing allegation that the American military secretly recovered dead alien bodies from crashed spaceships, twice in Arizona and once near Aztec, New Mexico, in March of 1948. Mr. Scully might well have been quite correct on that one, as we'll see later, although some of his information may have been hoaxed, or muddied, through a pair of alleged con artists, or a deliberate hack job by a paid-off “journalist” seeking to undermine his credibility (it's a long story). 

To get to the point, Frank's widow Alice Scully (1909-1996) once claimed that she and Frank learned back in June of 1954 that President Eisenhower had indeed made a secret visit to Edwards Airbase earlier that year for a covert UFO inspection. Their information was related via a carpenter whom they had employed at the time, one who said he had been working on the desert military base around the time of the amazing incident. Yet Scully didn't have enough backup data to go on and chose not to print the story, not wishing to incur the wrath of the military or the government. Patient Alice survived hubby Frank by 32 years and only told the tale to later investigators. Frank Scully died in, of all places, Palm Springs, just four months after another unusual Eisenhower summit there (see Chapter Eleven). 

Now for three brief, anonymous-sourced tales that certainly need more details and supportive sources, but are most fascinating. They were originally produced by Australian researcher/author Dr. Michael Emin Salla (1958-), who wrote a long essay on the “exopolitics” of the Eisenhower-extraterrestrial encounter in 2004, timed to the event's 50th anniversary... 

#5.) Supposedly the unnamed wife of a deceased military policeman who was once stationed at Edwards Airbase said her hubby was on duty there one night and ordered to guard a “flying disc” resting just inside a large airplane hangar. The MP said he was quite aware that President Eisenhower had visited the base for his own look-see at the off-world craft, although apparently, the military husband had not been around to witness that actual event. 

#6.) Another surviving widow in the twenty-first century alleged that her late husband had once informed her that he perused top secret images at the Pentagon, including ones showing President Dwight Eisenhower meeting some extraterrestrial beings at Edwards Air Base. 

#7.) Still another unidentified source has stated that he was part of a medical team told to stand by at an airfield not far from Palm Springs, waiting for President Eisenhower, who was taken there by automobile one February '54 night. The informant claimed Dwight then boarded a military transport, to fly hush-hush to another area airfield, Edwards Air Base most likely. 

More recently, a retired USAF man reinforced this by stating he learned that an ambulance and its medicos were to ordered to hustle from nearby George Air Force Base in southern California to stand by at Norton Air Force Base, just in case... all while Eisenhower utilized Norton AFB briefly to board a C-45 twin-engine Beechcraft airplane, regularly used in the past to ferry officers on short trips. He was flown to Palmdale, very near Edwards AFB, and from there could have been flown or driven with security to the proper Edwards hangar, to personally greet the landed ETs. 

#8.) William Brophy is the son of a lieutenant-colonel of the same name who served as a B-29 Bomber pilot, originally stationed out of Alamogordo, New Mexico. The father had heard plenty of stories from his fellow pilots and servicemen. He had a sensational peacetime story to share with his offspring. President Eisenhower, it seems, was called one night on a golf vacation and urged to come out to Edwards Air Force Base. Dwight was in Palm Springs, California, and was requested to meet on a base runway with friendly, tall, blonde-haired “Nords.” Those were tall, Nordic-looking, humanoid aliens who landed there one February afternoon and conversed with Air Force officials and later the president, the Brophy family narrative asserted. Two early-model F-102 jets were on the runway nearby, ready to be tested, when courageous Eisenhower exchanged greetings and opinions with the friendly off-world astronauts. {Source: George A. Filer III, New Jersey State Director of MUFON Eastern Region and editor at  www.nationalUFOcenter.com.}

In a 2019 message to this author, Mr. Brophy provided a little more detail, claiming the '54 encounter was carefully set up in advance as the alien beings were inquiring about a cigar-shaped spacecraft of theirs that had been “lost” (wrecked) while “near Dutton, Montana, on October 12, 1953.” Brophy explained that “two tall “Blondes” were killed “on Highway 91” in that tragic Montana event when their craft crash-landed “after exploding due to radarjamming of their controls.” Did the alleged “Nords” want their twisted, ruined spaceship back? It was in pieces, William explained but being held in Nevada for scrutiny. If so, then why did the beings present themselves at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California? Because this high-tech testing site was as close as the aliens were going to get in finding a remote, controlled setting to entice nearby President Eisenhower, who would be the ultimate “decider” of such classified issues. Dwight never went to Montana as president, but the Nords wanted their fallen comrades back, presumably, and took a bold step for retrieval in southern California. 

#9.) Charles L. Suggs II is a former U.S. Marine sergeant who stated in 1991 that his father - Naval Commander Charles L. Suggs I (1909-1987) – once confessed to being one of the six men guarding Eisenhower when aliens arrived at Edwards AFB in February of 1954. Nordic-like humanoid ETs with “pale blue eyes and colorless lips” and white/blonde hair communicated peacefully with the nervous but enthralled president and his small entourage. The elder Suggs allegedly told his son that the president was protected by alerted base officers and a squadron of B-58 Hustlers, cutting-edge military aircraft that would not become officially operational for another two years. The human-like “Nords” were also on their guard, sending just one bipedal representative down a ramp from a quiet, settled spacecraft, keeping several feet from Eisenhower while being protected from behind by another cautious “space brother.” 

The alien craft involved was allegedly “a bi-convex saucer” in design, sturdily standing on the runway via “tripod landing gear.” Supposedly this race of high-tech space ambassadors declared they were from a planet in another solar system. They came in peace and meant no one any harm, but were curious about the human race and the American president's plans for atomic bomb testing. They asked “detailed questions” about the subject, showing they knew quite well more dangerous detonations were being planned. 

#10.) Contemporary UFO author and lecturer Richard M. Dolan (1962-) of New York City (an Oxford University grad) has collected enough information to convince him that Dwight Eisenhower truly did meet in private with ETs in ’54. Mr. Dolan included the story within one of his popular books and appeared in the 2014 “MUFON, Hangar 1” program on the History Channel, an episode that expostulated on the staggering subject, and how it was to be kept secret from the populace. The president “disappeared for ten hours” one night, to pull off the secret summit. The arriving aliens offered President Eisenhower advanced technology, Dolan said he too learned from his sources, and in return asked for a private permanent base with which to operate out of. “Rumors came out within a week that Eisenhower had a meeting with aliens,” Richard told Hangar 1 viewers, mostly because “this leaked out on a radio show” hosted by a reporter named “Frank Edwards.” 

Author/journalist/broadcaster Frank Allyn Edwards (1908-1967) was that popular ’54 radio show pioneer in question, and yes, he did speak and write often about “UFOs and other paranormal phenomena,” according to online biographies. Dolan asserted that “millions of people listened in” to the revealing ’54 paranormal program's declaration, via the old Mutual Radio network. Perhaps so, for host Edwards’ national radio audience was once estimated at 13 million fans per show! Edwards was an open-minded American journalist/commentator who was “really into UFOs and flying saucers,” author Dolan noted. 

According to investigator Grant Cameron, about a month before Eisenhower's trip to Palm Springs, Frank Edwards reported on his radio show that a UFO had crashed near the California-Oregon border. Mr. Edwards told his large radio audience that it was his information that the crash-landed spaceship had been covertly moved “to a West Coast U.S. airfield.” As the months passed, more UFO reports were relayed on Frank Edwards' program, likely upsetting the powers that be. From his broadcasting station in Washington D.C., Frank Edwards even spoke of the now-famous unidentified craft sightings going on in the nation’s capital that May of ’54. 

Frank Edwards was abruptly fired from his radio program in mid 1954 “for reasons that remain uncertain. His interest in UFOs was said to be a factor,” a biographer summed up. Could it have had something to do with mentioning over the airwaves the likely highly classified Eisenhower encounter? What were Frank's specific sources for that staggering story? Military men from the airbase, even direct eyewitnesses to the event? Certainly, no copy of this particular program exists now, or Frank's notes, but happily the canned Mr. Edwards went on to rebound in other radio positions and writing jobs as time progressed. 

Just recently, today's so-called “UFO community” was stunned – and thrilled – to air a photograph relayed by Frank Edwards’ family. In it, he is shown posing in 1964 with none other than former President Harry Truman, who even took the time to sign the picture. Was Truman (in office from April 1945 to January 1953) a source for Edwards in the spring of 1954? Surely not... but perhaps through a third party? Conjecture, purely, but as we'll see, Mr. Truman might have been hovering on the fringes of the Eisenhower-ET saga. Another possible source is USAF Captain Edward J. Ruppelt (1923- 1960), who directed “Project Blue Book” until September of 1953, all about Air Force UFO investigations. Ruppelt typed up a cogent memo (unearthed decades later) on the red-hot rumors of Eisenhower's secret base visit for cosmic reasons, wanting firm answers just like reporter Frank Edwards, or anyone else. 

Speaking of progressive media reporting at the time – often a rarity – take the case of respected newspaper columnist Dorothy Mae Kilgallen (1913-1965). In February of 1954, Dorothy informed her daily readership that “flying saucers are regarded of such importance” by the U.S. military behind the scenes that “a special hush-hush meeting of world military heads” was being planned in private “for next summer.” Was such a confab the result of the hushed Eisenhower affair at Edwards? She also wrote a May 1955 newspaper column about a British cabinet source who told her about recovered UFOs “which originate on another planet,” adding, “We believe, based on our inquiries thus far, that the saucers were staffed by small men – probably under four feet tall.” 

Even though that's more than ten different sources... we'll toss in an extra little “bonus story” that also helps support the amazing Eisenhower allegation. An obscure Los Angeles Times newspaper employee named Donald Johnson, age 48, and his pal, businessman Paul Umbrello, said they were driving south near the Mojave Desert on one side, the Pacific Ocean on the other that late afternoon. They were “about one hundred miles” from Edwards AFB when they spotted something unusual in the sky. A great light, at first, but it seemingly grew in size as it got closer. It was a silvery disc! The two stopped the car and got out to take a closer look, very pleased and excited by their “flying saucer” sighting. The weird aerial object was headed west, from the mountains and desert towards the sea. “It was silver with an outer surface of dark metal, the most brilliant I have ever seen,” Don recalled. “We observed it for twenty minutes.” 

The floating airship was silent and quite vibrant in the darkening sky. Johnson reached back into the car and grabbed a camera. He focused and “started taking pictures.” Umbrello added, “It flew in a strange way” for it to be ever confused with a man-made aircraft, making it tough to capture in an exposure. The spacecraft was definitely unlike anything they'd ever seen before. As discussed in an article in a 1999 edition of “Flying Saucer Review” magazine, the two men watched the disc waft in the air over the Pacific and then fade out of sight. It was on or near February 19, the 50th day in the Gregorian calendar. For their '99 article's interview, the two men were given a polygraph test, and passed with “flying colors.” 

Once the spaceship finally moved on, out of sight, the two men continued their journey, babbling away over their sudden sighting. So thrilled by this unusual event, they recorded their memories on audiotape, and placed it and the resulting photographs in a file in Don's house. Years went by and the memories faded a bit, but later Mr. Johnson went back to look it up after a UFO investigator caught wind of their tale. They noticed Donald had scribbled the date of when the aging, dust-covered folder was sealed and labeled: “21 February 1954.” If this was truly the same aerial craft that was controlled by aliens and peacefully landed at Edwards Airbase for eventual inspection by Dwight Eisenhower, Johnson stated, “then we saw something historic.” 

Obviously, all of these aging tales desperately need further examination and explanation, details, and dissertation. But as the years fly by, it is admittedly likely too late to find out more. Overall however we can see a very intriguing circumstantial evidence case accumulating. But is there any possible foundation to the notion that Dwight David Eisenhower was ever interested in the topic of extraterrestrials? Had he ever experienced his own first-person encounters before becoming America's 34th president?

CHAPTER TWO 

The Ike We Liked 

“Eisenhower did indeed meet with extraterrestrial, off-world astronauts.” 

— Congressman 

Henry McElroy 

Historic ET involvement or not, Dwight David Eisenhower was unquestionably one of the greatest American heroes of the twentieth century. Born in Texas in October of 1890, Dwight (as one of seven sons) grew into an active, athletic young man in the American Midwest, but mostly on a Kansas farm. He was nicknamed “Little Ike” (later shortened) by his brothers while developing a keen passion for the military, which he joined at the age of twenty-one, entering the U.S. Army’s West Point Military Academy. His subsequent decades in the service of his country paid off as “Ike” rose steadily in army ranks with insightful ideas on developing a more efficient and effective U.S. fighting force. Working his way up to a five-star general in the second world war, Eisenhower was a natural-born military strategist, utilizing clever subterfuge and secrecy in his plans to help fool and foil the enemy in wartime. 

Dwight married once, for life, and fathered two children, although one died young. For the most part, he managed to keep his rather notorious temper in check as he worked his way up to Major-General by 1942, specializing in war and spy strategies. Quietly clever Eisenhower - a fearsome chain-smoker – was liked (and specially selected) by liberal President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882- 1945) as the U.S. military’s Supreme Allied Commander in the European theater during the critical WWII effort. FDR passed over one hundred other candidates of greater rank, familiarity, and notoriety to promote him. 

In his youth, Dwight delivered and read newspapers. He would later make his own news in these same publications, and even write his own book. As a boy, he loved to read books on wars, specific battles, and brave, armed soldiers, causing him to doodle and daydream of combat. His mother, a devout pacifist and Jehovah’s Witness, learned of her son’s growing fascination for military life and grew dismayed. She took away her son’s army books and locked them in the family home’s attic. Thus, at an early age Dwight learned first-hand about squelching facts and locking up data. 

One quick amazing fact: Dwight Eisenhower never once saw battle or experienced active combat. He never once even physically hurt, shot, or killed anyone, thus pleasing his mom. 

After his great success as in the global war, feisty President Harry S Truman (1884-1972) picked trusty Dwight in 1945 to be his new Army Chief of Staff and later, “Presiding Officer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” as American troops were slowly brought home to an increasingly troubled U.S. economy. So popular in opinion polls that Mr. Truman offered, incredibly, to step back into the vice presidency role in order to make Dwight the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in 1948, Eisenhower could punch his own ticket for future planning. He rejected Truman’s notion in favor of a little rest, memoir-writing, and a virtual part-time job at Columbia University in New York City, pumping up the family coffers first before entering the political arena as a Republican, all at his own leisurely pace. He could also engage more freely in some of his favorite pastimes: fly fishing, hunting, playing poker and bridge, and most of all, golfing. {Only later did he take up painting but did wisely ditch smoking.}

Intimates said they knew the older Dwight D. Eisenhower as a very respectable, confident, shrewd, ethical, and open-minded man in private. On the negative side, Dwight could be a bit cold and aloof at times. “Not a warm person,” as his granddaughter-in-law recalled. At his very worst, Dwight could be cranky and resistant to change, as are many older men who have been through an active life in an ever evolving society. He won the Republican Party nomination in mid 1952 and then the up-for-grabs presidency, all while an irritated President Truman sniped at him from time to time during the campaign. Before long, the two former friends and co-workers were barely on speaking terms. 

American voters so liked Ike and his agreeable wife, Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower (1896-1979) they put them in the White House by large victory margins in both the ‘52 and ‘56 campaigns. Republicans and Democrats alike respected and cared about the deeply Christian, low-key Eisenhower’s. For some reason, which seems a bit odd now in hindsight, Dwight was often beloved just for his then-famously “crooked grin.” 

In a nearly unprecedented move, outgoing President Truman set up a special meeting with the new president-elect in early November ’52, just after the national election. At that time, Harry gave victorious Dwight special access to the comprehensive “National Intelligence Digest” which was produced by the newfangled Central Intelligence Agency. There were some classified subjects the two men needed to chat about in the privacy of the Oval Office, away from the press, which took initial meeting photos, then were escorted out. What exactly the famous duo managed to discuss behind those closed doors has never been fully revealed. 

Few folks to this day realize that Dwight Eisenhower was the first American president to hold a pilot’s license (since 1939) and possess a thorough knowledge of aircraft and high-speed flight. In July of 1957, he became the first sitting president to fly as a passenger in a helicopter, , taking off from the South Lawn, and since then the standard procedure for presidential families. Dwight extensively used chauffeurs and did not even drive his own car, preferring limos to take him places without fanfare. In fact, the new First Couple were so modest they drew criticism by settling into a “cozy suburbia” in the White House, choosing to play cards, watch television, and go to bed just after 11:00 p.m. at the latest. 

Mamie loved TV soap operas while Dwight preferred cowboy westerns and the “Sergeant Bilko” comedy show, according to biographers. Dinner was almost always served promptly at 8:00 after a half-hour of mingling before that with assembled guests, about fifteen at most. Scintillating artists and innovative entertainers were generally not invited to perform, or even dine in the presidential mansion. Dwight and Mamie’s only son was off in the service and the couple did not own any pets. It was a remarkably quiet – some say humdrum – older man’s existence, approaching an age when most folks consider residence in retirement communities. 

As president, Dwight had dutifully spent much of his time reading a lot of briefing documents, intelligence reports, and news stories in order to keep up with the changing world. By the late 1940s and much of the ‘50s, “UFO” and “flying saucer” reports – and even motion pictures – were seen often in newspaper headlines and on movie theater screens, whether he liked it or not. 

As incredible as it seems, a letter published in the New York Post in June of 1997 stated back in early 1952, Dwight Eisenhower had experienced his own UFO sighting… 

What was printed in that New York City paper was an anonymous letter from “a crew member” of a United States aircraft carrier stationed to cruise across the Atlantic Ocean, experienced in early '52. The U.S.S. Franklin D. Roosevelt - part of the American Sixth Fleet - was steaming off the British coast when it was boarded by an admiral and retired Mr. Eisenhower, during Dwight’s final tour of special duty in Europe just before he hunkered down to campaign for president. A storm set in that evening, featuring thunder, lightning, and substantial rain. The soaked ship – rumored to be carrying nuclear weapons - rocked Eisenhower to sleep, but only for so long. 

He reportedly wandered up to the bridge at about 1:30 a.m. in his pajamas and bathrobe, looking for a cup of coffee. Then four servicemen on the bridge, ably commanding the huge ship in the storm, chatted amiably with the famous ex-general until something caught their eye. It was a bluish-white UFO, a well-lit object that came down out of the rainy skies and hovered about one hundred feet over the water, “right off the starboard bow.” The five military men stared at it, nearly wordless and incredulous, then exchanged stunned glances at each other. “Flashes of lightning helped to more clearly illuminate the strange craft,” the retired sailor recalled in '97. The commander steamed the huge carrier right past the hovering disc, getting a good look. Finally, after the UFO zipped away, Eisenhower calmly told the crew he would “go check on this.” Before he left, he cautioned the startled servicemen to simply “forget about this for now.” The subject was not brought up again, not in the hours, days, weeks, or even years afterward. 

The writer of this amazing tale wanted the truth told before he died, thus the letter to the Post. If the story is genuinely nonfiction, it certainly shows that Dwight Eisenhower was mentally and emotionally piqued and readied for more visits from alien beings before he assumed the office of the presidency. If the letter was a work of fiction, then, well, it provides amusing entertainment for the masses and has no impact on allegations to come in this book. The popular New York Post did enough research to confirm the author's story before they went to print in 1997. The alien spaceship didn’t just quickly buzz the giant sea-ship and take off; it hovered in place over it for “nearly ten minutes” that the five men saw, perhaps longer before being noticed hanging there in the stormy sky. There could be no doubt it was not of this earth. 

Was this extraordinary event part of an overall plan by extraterrestrials, to purposely prepare Dwight D. Eisenhower for eventual face-to-face contact? Or could it even have been a gentle “reminder” for him of something otherworldly he took part in from a few years earlier? 

Back in the summer of 1947, as popular legend tells us over and over, something quite otherworldly came hurtling down to earth on rough, rural New Mexico soil, outside a small town (and army airbase) called Roswell. Later-leaked and quite authentic-looking government documents  (majesticdocuments.com) reveal that as President Truman's Army Chief of Staff, General Dwight Eisenhower was made fully aware of the jolting ET situation, and in fact, on 7/8/47 was even in charge of authorizing military personnel - like stern-looking Air Force General Nathan Farragut Twining (1897- 198–) - to go to the desert crash sites and investigate and to make a full report for Truman and his top military brass, plus some trusted advisers. 

Leaked in the mid-1990s, an Army Counter Intelligence Corps “Intelligence Assessment” from 7/22/47 mentioned the following two remarkable sentences, regarding the twin New Mexico desert UFO crashes, one of which produced five deceased “grayish pink” alien bodies: “General Twining and staff is preparing a detailed report of both incidents and briefings later to follow. Likewise, the belief of CIC that General Eisenhower will see a showing of recoveries sometime in late August this year. The president was given a limited briefing at the Pentagon.” 

Did General Eisenhower indeed go view dead alien bodies and ship debris? According to a 2009 “Coast to Coast A.M.” radio show call-in source, once-secret film footage exists of Dwight privately observing the New Mexico-recovered ET bodies and UFO debris alongside famed aviator/industrialist Howard Robard Hughes (1905- 1976), in a warehouse-type setting back in mid-1947. The nervous call-in source said he had viewed only some of the film he inherited and chillingly reported, “What I've seen scares me to death.” Most disappointingly, such images have yet to surface as of 2020, however. 

Meanwhile another later-leaked military memo – from the Majestic Documents site - mentions General Eisenhower permitting an airbase-touring Catholic bishop to have access to sensitive matters in New Mexico during the now-controversial summer of '47. (For more, see Chapter Nine). 

So was Dwight Eisenhower involved in any military assessment of the Roswell crash? It's difficult to say firmly, but to this day “Eisenhower Road” runs through that desert city. Of all the street names in America to pick from... 

Despite fine investigative efforts by the likes of Dr. Stanton Terry Friedman (1934-2019) and Ryan S. Wood, plus hardworking journalist Linda Moulton Howe, some skeptics have not entirely embraced the so-called “Eisenhower Briefing Documents,” possible blockbuster government evidence that was discovered in 1984. The alleged secret papers were photographic images of a supposedly top-secret report about the covert study committee “Majestic-12,” dated November 18, 1952. The still controversial and contested “MJ12” document was supposedly written up and supplied by the Truman White House, shown to newly-elected Mr. Eisenhower before he took office, as a “preliminary briefing” on the secretive subject on what was known by the United States government regarding alien visitation. 

Much of the Military/Academic Joint Intelligence Committee material concentrates on the ’47 Roswell crash, but some detractors feel the documents are fakes. To be sure, the “Eisenhower Briefing Documents” were never produced as actual, tangible papers to be tested by reliable and unbiased sources, only shown within a roll of developed snapshot film sent in the mail to a researcher by an anonymous source, postmarked in Albuquerque, New Mexico, home of Kirtland Air Force Base and the long-rumored site of some secretly-recovered UFO crash examinations. But if real, the 1952 summary was likely a type of “refresher course” for knowledgeable President-Elect Eisenhower. Some even feel he had little regard or interest in the report as he already knew the information contained within it. 

We must bear in mind that no government document is perfect, especially in a pre-computer program era like the 1950s, where typewriters were used and their ribbons often locked up at night, to keep government secrets. Secretaries and stenographers made mistakes, as did the sources who dictated the information, and multiple tries, or versions, were created to knock out the kinks, plus add or subtract data. Any of these drafts could have been smuggled out at some point by a courageous source, who later passed them along and/or leaked them, the data was so explosive. This author believes the “Eisenhower Briefing Documents” are likely genuine, perhaps a bit flawed for reasons stated, and urges readers to view a 2002 documentary currently online entitled “UFO Secret MJ12: Do You Believe in Majic?” to help decide the controversial report’s merits. Or read Linda Moulton Howe's groundbreaking 1989 book, “An Alien Harvest,” or better yet, access her marvelous “Earthfiles.com” site. One important factor to remember: the U.S. government printing press in those days had a dust-altered “raised” letter Z in their issued documents – and so did the Eisenhower briefing papers. 

Many UFO authors and skeptics also debate the merits of the so called “Cutler-Twining memo,” a rather famous Eisenhower White House document(s), allegedly, dated Tuesday, July 13, 1954 – then amended and sent on Wednesday the 14th . In it, USAF General Nathan Twining is notified to attend an “extraordinary meeting” at the executive mansion on “Thursday the 16th” (mistaken dating, Thursday was the 15th) by the “NSC/MJ-12 Special Studies Project.” Top secret UFO/ET stuff, in other words. The twin directives were dictated by “special assistant to the president” Robert Cutler (1895- 1974), the trusty National Security Adviser from 1953 to 1955. But why all the memo secrecy about which White House entrance for General Twining to utilize at 8:45 a.m. for the big meeting? Very few subjects could cause such restrictions, but a hush-hush confab regarding recently landed, friendly aliens would certainly make the grade. Presidential appointment records show that a National Security Council meeting was held at the Eisenhower White House on July 15, and yet General Twining was not officially listed as present. However, logs reveal Nathan was around Dwight that Thursday, attending a White House luncheon with him with about twenty others present, something Twining was alerted to do by Cutler in the original memo of the 13th . So, was the whole memorandum valid but with a dating error? Or clumsily hoaxed? The debate rages on. 

The Cutler memorandum to General Twining was discovered in 1984 by two researchers, digging within the National Archives. Some say it was planted there (but does that make it fake?) but if genuine, might give us a strong clue as to the officials who later dealt with the 2/19/54 Eisenhower-ET encounter and put a stop to any public announcement of it. It seems the National Security Council was a deep influence on the matter, along with the ongoing, always secretive “MJ-12” committee, which UFO investigators began to learn more about in the mid-to-late 1980s. By that point, there was no one left alive from it to comment on the issue; the last member of the listed original alien studies committee had died two weeks before the discovery of the “Cutler-Twining Memo.” 

To help buttress support for the reality of the special, secretive UFO study group, a November 4, 1953, memo - obviously leaked decades later - from President Eisenhower to the head of the CIA mentions “the MJ12 Operations Plan” and also “the MJ-12/Special Studies Project.” It also makes clear the president had issued specific directives on UFOs on January 23, 1953 (just after taking office), and Sunday, March 22, and some “expenditures for UFO Intelligence programs” back on June 16, of '53. Official appointments logs reveal the usual high-level Oval Office meetings for Eisenhower that 6/16/53, then an abrupt, unusual end to recorded events at 3:30 p.m. What was going on so red hot that it ’could not be recorded? The November memo to the ’IA's director also recalled a “Classified Basic Authorization” of something important issued on 3/22/53, and existing records reveal that President Eisenhower called up and invited over that quiet afternoon a close friend named “the Honorable Paul Hoffman.” More on him later. 

Still other leaked and trusted U.S. government documents over the years refer to “MJ-12” and its mind-blowing committee activities/opinions on understanding alien visitation. They can be seen within www.MajesticDocuments.com One UFO researcher has claimed that Mr. Eisenhower was also briefed on the ET situation by an “MJ-12” member “in Atlanta on November 15, 1952, and had a further meeting on November 18th at the Pentagon” with two MJ-12 Committee members present. Intriguing if true. Since the controversial '52 briefing papers have nothing to do with the events of February of 1954,’we'll move on... 

No can argue that President Dwight D. Eisenhower calmly ruled his peace-loving country in one of the quietest eras ever. Some historians call 1954 the most peaceful, dull year in all of United States history. The year was noteworthy in hindsight for its many “UFO” and “flying saucer” sightings around the world, often making the news. France in particular experienced a large wave of odd ET sightings in '54 (and supposedly, Eisenhower asked an aide about it). According to eyewitness reports, “dwarfish creatures” were being seen, at times besides landed shiny, silver discs, triggering some small amount of paranoia and fear among the French citizenry. 

“When I go back far enough,” President Eisenhower told the assembled media that December of '54, “the last time I heard this talked to me, a man whom I trust from the Air Force {sic} said that it was, as far as he knew, completely inaccurate to believe that they come from any outside planet or otherwise.” Any citizen could look at that statement – printed on the front page of the esteemed New York Times - as a denial of otherworldly happenings, but ’let us examine it carefully. Eisenhower did not say he did not believe in aliens or their “UFO” spaceships in our skies, visiting our world. He simply passed along the negative opinion of an Air Force adviser. Dwight was, in fact, legendary for his double-talk to the press, done to purposely mislead them; he had proudly done so since his early army days to remain close mouthed about sensitive military operations. He said he enjoyed throwing off the press to keep projects secret. 

Historians also note that President Eisenhower was supportive of Vice President Richard Nixon, so “Tricky Dick,” but they were not particularly close on a daily basis. Young Mr. Nixon most likely had no idea what was going on with the president in southern California that February of '54. News accounts show that Dick Nixon was back in Washington during Dwight’s “golf vacation,” trying to soothe old political rivalries, mostly within the Republican Party on Capitol Hill. Eisenhower spent most of his mid-February Palm Springs trip calmly golfing, while his aging but trusted Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (1888-1959) was in Europe, attending conferences and laying the groundwork for foreign policies. Chief Executive Dwight knew how to delegate authority to those he respected. But as we know now, something shocking and otherworldly was going on behind the scenes, effectively kept from the public. 

In his post-1961 retirement ex-President Eisenhower certainly never mentioned extraterrestrials when penning his presidential memoirs while living (part-time) in laid-back Palm Springs. He obviously could not reveal classified, top-secret information, however, so this discrepancy is a no-brainer. Similarly, a few decades after Dwight’s presidency his White House “diary,” or logbook of events, was published in book form. The six days of his So-Cal golf idyll were either scarcely noted or just left blank. When one is lounging on vacation, one has the free leisure time to fill in diary or notebook entries at some length. 

Doodling by the president on White House stationary revealed decades later a rather odd, almost-alien-looking male human standing in the foreground, bald and stoic. It seems to have Dwight’s face. A saucer-like object appears to hover in the sky over this eye catching figure! The phrase “internal security” was scrawled, near warships like the kind Dwight traveled on in '52 when he saw a UFO. A bored President Eisenhower created this drawing at a dull cabinet meeting. Some other similar “Dwight doodles” show flying triangular shaped objects, plus cylindrical and long V-shaped images, as if odd alien spaceships. But interpretations can differ, of course. 

A mere sergeant in the late 1950s – but an Army Signal Corps. specialist - Stephen L. Lovekin (1940-2009) went on to become a respected U.S. Brigadier General. Near the end of his life, Lovekin said he was present at Maryland’s Camp David in 1959 with a relaxed Commander-in-Chief Eisenhower seated nearby, drawing UFOs on a sheet of paper while waiting for an important telephone call. Lovekin said that while Dwight was in the presence of a few trusted military aides, the president began talking about “UFOs in 1952, shortly before he took office.” Was this the memorable U.S.S. Roosevelt incident? Whatever the case, it wasn’t the first time the unusual subject affected and intrigued the president, Lovekin noted. Also, President Eisenhower “was a doodler” and drew “various forms of UFOs . . . he was interested in shapes and sizes,” Lovekin recalled to a documentary film interviewer. Alien visitation was real, Lovekin stressed, and Eisenhower “was fully aware of the facts.” Stephen added in another interview: “It was a very, very important concern of his.... He was very much into it. He believed in them.” So much so, “he realized the concern of the American people” also on the presence of aliens observing life on earth but felt he could not act as “his hands were tied.” 

Retired Stephen Lovekin additionally said he was aware that President Eisenhower frequently received and read UFO reports behind the scenes, issued mostly by military sources. “Without him knowing it, he lost control of the entire UFO situation,” Lovekin explained, by way of the military-industrial complex taking over the physical evidence and its application in hushed corporate projects, mainly in aircraft/arms development. {An excellent site for more on this topic: http://www.roswellproof.com/}

During all of this in the 1950s, were advanced alien beings somehow, someway making some sort of contact with a government agency or at least some military operatives, perhaps by the airwaves? Perhaps in order to relay their desire for a special summit with newly installed Eisenhower? That was admittedly a wild sounding allegation, but one that a former New Hampshire state legislator publicly confirmed via a special video produced on May 8, 2010. 

It seems that on that date while living in Virginia, ex-congressman Henry W. McElroy, Jr. (1941-) stated on camera that he once read a shocking government report from 1953. It explained that a certain congenial race of ETs was in radio communication with American military scientists, asking to meet their top leader in private, in a peaceful, protected setting. This friendly race of otherworldly beings - humanoid ambassadors if you will – wanted to open a historic dialogue. This would help create good relations between humans and their peaceful alien brethren... which Mr. McElroy further stated he felt President Eisenhower did. 

Wow! It was a thought-provoking, historic notion (if true). Why would a very conservative politician in 2010 risk his reputation and any further career in any chosen field by coming forward with a silly hoax? Why set yourself up for ridicule from the skeptics... unless you really did read some shocking but genuine government secrets? Congressman McElroy would have been a total fool to take part in a prank, or a fool to have openly fallen for fakes. It was all-important enough to him to chance possible unpleasant repercussions or retribution from the U.S. military or government. 

The New Hampshire former state representative said that one briefing document for newly-sworn-in President Eisenhower “was pervaded with a sense of hope” that historic contact and communication between one “benevolent” extraterrestrial race and the human race could soon be established, should American leadership find it desirable to set up a summit between the two parties. Mr. McElroy further said that although he ’could not name specifically where or when the impressive face-to-face contact with aliens occurred but asserted confidently that he believed that “Eisenhower did indeed meet with extraterrestrial, off-world astronauts.” 

For his credibility, it should be noted that the unassuming, publicity-shy Henry W. McElroy in his governmental employee days worked on the “State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs Committee,” where he read the 1950s document and learned of the exciting tale. He also served on various other committees in New Hampshire’s legislature, for many years. Henry was no attention seeking clown seeking higher office or a pundit's job on television, just an aging American who wanted the full truth out now, for the world to consider, while he was out of office, not seeking a new political position requiring votes, but before he passed away. 

There have been claims in past decades from UFO researchers that “Project Sign” and/or “Project Sigma” were secret ongoing military-based scientific operations attempting to contact through very high-frequency radio signals any orbiting extraterrestrials in space. And that this covert process - involving early computer binary language to communicate without detection by average citizens with ham radios - eventually set up the Eisenhower-ET summit time, place, and date. There ’has not been any smoking-gun proof of this over the years, however, but such allegations seem reasonable enough, placed in context with the actions of presidents Truman and Eisenhower, as we shall see. 

Was the Eisenhower-ET Edwards Airbase meeting premeditated, set up well in advance? The data collected herein seems to conclude that it was. For instance, research shows that on February 13th , '54, Jim C. Lucas of Scripps-Howard News Service wrote that “representatives of major airlines” were planning to meet in Los Angeles (of all places) “with Military Air Transport Service Intelligence officers to discuss speeding up UFO reporting procedures.” This would include airline pilots being asked, “Not to discuss their sightings publicly or give them to newspapers.” 

The high-level confab did indeed take place, on February 17th, the day Eisenhower left the White House for California, and two days before the otherworldly Mojave Desert landing. U.S. Air Force officials met in private with representatives of America’s biggest commercial airliners. A news organization’s published story on the military confab summed up sources as having stated that said airline pilots would from that day forward be forced to report all UFO sightings directly to the USAF at the nearest military airbase (even while still in flight) and then to keep their lips sealed. So disgruntled were the hundreds of civilian passenger plane pilots involved in this strict governmental control that they signed a petition to protest this strict new policy, but it failed to have any impact at all on the unusual situation. 

Adding to the notion of a predesignated time and place comes a detail from the contemporary “MUFON Hangar 1” television show. One of their episodes claimed that “documents show that Edwards Airbase was shut down to incoming air traffic and all nonessential personnel from February 19th to February 21st.” Should this report be true it strongly indicates clear communication was set up by American intelligence officers and friendly extraterrestrials to lay out in advance the possibility of a peaceful alien landing during those three days, while the president vacationed nearly 130 highway miles away, or “about two and a half hours’ drive,” the MUFON television show asserted in 2014. Flying directly from the Palm Springs area to Edwards AFB would have been close to ninety miles in about a half hour’s time or less, we'll say (depending upon airspeed). 

By January of 1953 - likely even before taking office in November of '52 - the new chief executive felt he needed a warm, uncluttered place to relax and play yet more golf... in order to give himself an effective cover story as he awaited a possible friendly alien landing not far away, in a controllable remote setting - like Edwards Air Force Base. If the communicative ETs showed, they showed. If not, Dwight could happily golf his heart out and no one would know the difference. It was an ideal plan. 

At the nice-but-not-ritzy home where the Eisenhower’s were to stay in Palm Springs, rooms had been added during 1953 construction and special telephone lines were installed in advance of the visit, too. Also included were acceptable quarters for ever present Secret Service agents in this “Western White House,” according to an article looking back on that era. “Times” - these low profile agents who worked for the U.S. Treasury Department - would have worked in shifts, some relaxing while others patrolled the president's temporary vacation living arrangement inside and out. At least two federal agents would have accompanied Dwight on his automobile trips into town, mostly to local country club golf courses. It was rare, but not unheard of, for a president to ditch his agents and go off alone, mostly at night in that era. 

Keeping an eye on the physical and mental/emotional well-being of a president was of substantial importance to federal agents assigned to protect him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is a bit lost to history today how ill Dwight Eisenhower was at times during his eight-year presidential tenure. He would not suffer his rather famous heart attack for more than a full year after his '54 encounter, but in addition to that Dwight bravely soldiered through Crohn’s Disease; a ventricular aneurysm; dental pain; a mild stroke; stomach and gallbladder problems; and an adrenal tumor (not discovered until after his death). Capping this off in the spring of 1969, Mr. Eisenhower died of congestive heart failure, following more heart attacks suffered in his retirement. Needless to say, he was often not a well man. 

Dwight Eisenhower and his impishly-charming wife Mamie, their personal valets and secretaries, a small handful of White House aides, a Secret Service contingent, and the president’s mother-in-law flew on 2/17/54 from D.C. to the West Coast aboard “Columbine II,” the new official large airplane for the commander-in-chief in those days, just before the advent of the now well-known moniker “Air Force One” (although that was its official designation even then). Sleepy, upscale Palm Springs was the only destination listed. In 1954 the southern California city “boasted” a population of only around 8,000 residents, although its sprawling community was linked by other similar desert towns as word spread over the decades – often via wealthy Hollywood stars – about how warm and dry, peaceful, and pleasant it was most of the year in this scenic, mountain-ringed, palm-tree-studded area. {Today Palm Springs’ population consists of over 45,000 residents, plus many visiting tourists from all over the world.} Frankly, there wasn’t a whole lot to do in town in '54, making it a pretty strange presidential destination, minus the golf courses, which were frankly nicer and more plentiful back on the East Coast. 

State, county, and local dignitaries, excited citizenry, the local and West Coast media, and the traveling White House press corps were well-prepared for the arrival of the Eisenhower’s when they touched down at the modest Palm Springs Public Airport that mid-winter, seemingly looking only for a restful escape from the pressures of national and global leadership. Dwight was to be joined on the links by his old business executive friends, plus accomplished professional golf star William Ben Hogan (1912-1997). 

It was on a Wednesday evening that President and First Lady Eisenhower’s plane touched down at 9:02 p.m., Pacific Time. Republican Governor Goodwin Jess Knight (1896-1970) and Palm Springs Mayor Florian Gillar Boyd (1928-2013) were on hand to proudly greet the First Couple on the tarmac, watched closely and cheered on by some soldiers and several thousand enthusiastic citizens who gawked from the sidelines, snapping pictures, according to news reports. None of the greeters knew there was a bit of a loose, top-secret agenda to the vacation, not even Mamie. The president and only a couple of advisers who accompanied him knew it was at least possible history was about to be made – maybe – in a carefully prepared, covert operation. 

But when it came to meeting congenial extraterrestrial beings face-to-face in private, was new President Eisenhower at least partially just trying to “even the score,” or even “do one better,” with his former boss, ex-President Harry Truman? Did Harry and Ike's recent past play a role in the stunning contact of 1954?

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