Jackie Gleason Claims Presidents Told Him UFO’s Are Real

I’ve been reading up a lot on Jackie Gleason recently, and something which particularly caught my eye is that not only was Jackie Gleason a big believer in the supernatural and in UFO’s, he claims that four Presidents told him that UFO’s are real, and that Richard Nixon actually showed him the wreckage of a UFO and the frozen bodies of aliens!

His story seems to even be corroborated by the head of the Strategic Air Force Command — though it is possible he may have just been joking.

When he found he couldn’t drink all his money, he started spending small fortunes on explorations of occultism and UFOs, two fields that had long fascinated him. His recently acquired insomnia allowed him to devour hundreds of books speculating about strange, unexplained phenomena and aliens plotting amongst humanity. He loved to argue the subjects and during one knock-down drag-out debate with a newspaper columnist at Toots Shor’s, he received an unexpected affirmation of his beliefs. Gleason assured the columnist that UFOs had been seen by both sides during World War II, and that four Presidents had told him they were real. The columnist scoffed until General R. O’Donnell, the head of the Strategic Air Force Command, overheard the two arguing, walked up, whispered, ‘Jackie’s right,” then walked away.

Gleason’s second wife, Beverly McKittrick, claimed Jackie was given an even grander affirmation by President Richard Nixon, Jackie’s frequent golfing partner. According to her, Nixon ditched his Secret Service entourage, picked up Jackie and drove him to a heavily guarded compound at the Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. There he showed Jackie the wreckage of a crashed alien spaceship and the frozen bodies of dead extraterrestrials. Beverly claimed the event heavily traumatized Jackie-he couldn’t sleep for weeks and had to double his usual intake of alcohol just to get back to normal.

The accuracy of the story has always been questioned, because Gleason never spoke openly about the event. The original person telling the Gleason/alien body story was Beverly Gleason, Gleason’s second wife from 1970-1974.

Now after many years of silence Mrs. Gleason speaks out again to confirm the story she first told many years ago. The latest interview is done by Kenny Young.

INTERVIEW with BEVERLY GLEASON

This morning I spoke by telephone with Beverly Gleason McKittrick, an ex-wife of the late comedian Jackie Gleason. I explained to her that I was interested in the progress of her book and if she could talk about Jackie Gleason’s claim of seeing alien bodies at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida.

She said that the book never came out as she had ‘stopped writing’ of it. She said she was ‘glad to get out of it’ as Jackie Gleason did not seem pleased with her quoting him on the aliens in Florida. She said that there was not much additional to tell as the whole story regarding Jackie Gleason and the aliens, as far as she knew, had already been printed anyway.

“Esquire Magazine interviewed me after our separation,” she said, “and I talked about how Jackie told me about seeing dead aliens in Florida. I think it was sometime in ’74 when this happened. When I said that it was because he told me.”

“After the interview was published, Jackie was upset about the story being public. He called and said he didn’t appreciate me giving the interview, and that’s when I started to wonder if the story was ‘iffy.’

“The reason I became ‘iffy’ about it is because I wondered if it was really true, I mean… I believed it the whole time. I bought the story hook, line and sinker. But if it was true, then why did he get so upset about it?”

Beverly went on to explain how Jackie came to tell her of his experience.

“Jackie had been out very late one night I did not know who he was with,” She said. “He told me where he was that same evening, he said he had been in South Florida with President Nixon to see some dead aliens there and I believed him, he was very convincing.

“He and Nixon were in contact quite a bit and I’m not sure how that was arranged, but it seems that their meetings were set up by an associate of Nixon’s. After he got back, he was very pleased he had an opportunity to see the dead little men in cases, he explained to me what they looked like and he was still talking about it the next day.”

Beverly explained that during her interview with Esquire Magazine, she made the statement about Gleason’s claim to see dead aliens and afterward things between her and Jackie turned sour.

“We were on the verge of divorce, but everything was okay until it came out in Esquire,” she said.

She informed that Gleason never did deny the story.

Regarding her announced intention to write a book, Beverly again said that she abandoned the project due in large part to Gleason’s objection to her comments about him seeing the aliens.

“I just made that one statement about the UFOs and it appeared in Esquire and I guess a few other places and he didn’t like that and I thought, I just can’t go through with this. Let him live his life. So I never wrote the book.”

I thanked Beverly for talking with me and asked if it would be okay for me to call her back later if I had more questions, she agreed. That concluded our conversation.

Special thanks to Donnie Blessing, Grant Cameron and David Rudiak for their help in providing contact information for Beverly Gleason McKittrick.

Filed,
JULY 9, 2003
KENNY YOUNG

FOLLOW UP….

She said that in the years after the Esquire report, other publications picked up the story – some of them she thought, directly from Esquire.

 
Going back to the Gleason/Nixon meetings for golf in Florida, she couldn’t remember any specific date they met but said that her relationship with Jackie Gleason was good during that time frame. She said that she had even met with President Nixon herself, meeting him near a pool and having a drink with him.
 
She said that later, at the time of the Esquire article, her relationship with Jackie was not good.
 
“I’ll be honest with you, about the time the article appeared Jack and I were breaking up,” she said. “And when he saw the Esquire article that just finished everything.”
 
I asked her about the reports she had planned to write a book and whether or not she ever prepared a manuscript. She said that she did not have any written manuscript at any time and nothing otherwise prepared. There is nothing she had ever prepared in writing, she said, to document this first-hand.
 
“At the time Jack came home after his meeting with The President, he was so giddy and excited about seeing these little men,” she said, “but in the years afterward I began to ask myself if any of this could really be true or if he was just telling me that… perhaps having been ‘out’ with someone?”
 
I asked her if she could recall any of his words, a more complete description of the ‘little men’ or any information such as where they came from or crashed, and Beverly laughed and reminded me of how many years ago this was. She then answered by saying: “you would be best off to find that Esquire article, that probably contains my closest recollection of anything he said.”
 
I told Beverly that in addition to doing research, I also was involved in writing and producing television documentaries. I asked her if she would feel comfortable going ‘on camera’ with  this story and said that it would be tremendous to preserve her comments and experience on videotape. She said that she was not interested in going on television and thought the story concerning the ‘little men’ should be authenticated first. I said that the only real ‘authentication’ would come if the government announced having the bodies and she said “I guess you’re right, but I guess I just don’t want to go on camera with this.”
 
I thanked her for talking with me and she again suggested I find
the Esquire magazine article.
 
Filed, AUGUST 6, 2003
 
Kenny Young