For as long as humanity has looked up at the night sky, it has wondered one thing: ‘Do you think it will rain later?’ Oh, and also whether aliens prowl the cosmos. The latest person haunted by this spectre is Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg is no stranger to extraterrestrials, having made Close Encounters of the Third Kind, War of the Worlds, and even Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. His new movie, Disclosure Day, might be his most interesting take on aliens yet. The film follows cybersecurity expert Daniel Kellner and meteorologist Margaret Fairchild as they expose a cover-up of extraterrestrial secrets.
Among the classic UFO stories featured—Roswell, Flight 1628, and the Pentagon UFO videos—Spielberg includes a lesser-known but chilling urban legend. In Disclosure Day, the government stopped telling presidents about aliens after a previous Commander in Chief took a celebrity friend to see them. This is the tale of President Richard Nixon and his friend, comedian Jackie Gleason.
Nixon and Gleason's Alien Encounter
Nixon and Gleason became friends in the 1960s, bonding over golf and a shared fascination with aliens. After Nixon became president, he supposedly did his old pal a favour. On February 19, 1973, after a few cocktails, Nixon drove Gleason to Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. There, soldiers showed Gleason the embalmed bodies of four alien beings—two feet tall, with small bald heads and big ears. Gleason was sworn to secrecy but returned home visibly shaken. He confided in his wife, Beverly McKittrick Gleason, making her swear never to tell anyone.
So how do we know about this? After their divorce, Beverly wrote about it in an unpublished memoir and gave interviews in the 1980s. The story eventually appeared in the National Enquirer under the headline: ‘Space aliens exist! Ask Jackie Gleason — he’s actually seen them’.
Is the Story True?
There are more holes in this tale than a broken colander. First, a president cannot simply drive to an airbase without security. Second, Beverly had a motive—she was trying to sell her book. Finally, Gleason’s interest in UFOs began in the late 1950s, long before the alleged trip.
Nixon’s diary does reveal he met Gleason on that day, but his published schedule left no room for a drunken trip to see alien mummies. Still, why let the truth get in the way of a good story? Spielberg certainly didn’t.
Disclosure Day is in cinemas now.
