That time Nixon allegedly showed Jackie Gleason a dead alien, and why it’s back in the news
One of the wildest UFO legends says President Nixon drove his golf buddy Jackie Gleason to a secret base to see dead aliens. It’s almost certainly not true. So why is Steven Spielberg’s new movie treating it as real? To the moon, indeed.
Buckle up for one of the strangest UFO legends ever told: the time President Richard Nixon supposedly showed Honeymooners star Jackie Gleason a stash of dead aliens.
It sounds completely made up, and it probably is. But the story just got a fresh spotlight thanks to Steven Spielberg’s new alien thriller, so let’s dig into the bonkers tale, the reasons it almost certainly didn’t happen, and why a Hollywood legend decided to put it on the big screen anyway.
The legend
Here’s the story as it’s been told for 40 years.
According to the tale, in 1973, President Nixon and his good friend Jackie Gleason, golfing buddies in Florida, made a secret late-night trip to Homestead Air Force Base. There, Nixon allegedly showed Gleason the embalmed bodies of several small alien beings, described as about two feet tall, with tiny bald heads and big ears, supposedly recovered from a crashed flying saucer.
The story goes that Gleason came home pale and shaken, and eventually confided the whole thing to his wife. And here’s the kicker that makes it weirdly plausible to believers: Gleason was a genuine, lifelong UFO fanatic. He owned a massive library of UFO books and even built a house shaped like a flying saucer. If Nixon wanted to blow one celebrity’s mind with a secret, Gleason was the perfect audience.
Where the story actually came from
Here’s the important part, because the source tells you a lot.
The tale didn’t come from Gleason himself. It came from his second wife, Beverly, who told it to the National Enquirer in 1983, a full decade after it supposedly happened. It was billed as an excerpt from a tell-all “bombshell book” about her marriage to Gleason, a book that, notably, was never actually published.
So the entire legend traces back to a tabloid story, promoting a book that never came out, told by an ex-spouse who wasn’t present for the alleged event. That’s a shaky foundation, to put it mildly.
Why it almost certainly didn’t happen
Here’s where the story falls apart under scrutiny.
Skeptics have poked some serious holes in it:
Nixon’s own diary contradicts it. Records from the Nixon Library confirm the president WAS with Gleason on February 19, 1973, but at a celebrity golf tournament, for about 40 minutes. He spoke to the crowd for roughly 10 minutes, then helicoptered off to his Key Biscayne compound. There’s no window for a secret midnight alien field trip.
The “no Secret Service” problem. The story claims Nixon showed up alone at Gleason’s door with no security detail, which is essentially impossible for a sitting president.
Nixon reportedly didn’t care about UFOs. A close Nixon confidant who helped with his memoirs said the ex-president showed zero interest in UFOs or aliens.
The skeptic site Skeptoid summed it up with four possibilities: Gleason invented it as an alibi for a late night, Beverly invented it to sell her book, the Enquirer invented it to sell papers, or, you know, it actually happened. Three of those four are a lot more likely than the fourth.
There is ONE wrinkle believers cling to: a ufologist named Larry Warren claimed that in 1986, Gleason personally confirmed the story to him. Gleason died the next year, in 1987, taking the truth (whatever it was) with him.
Why it’s back: Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day”
Now here’s the reason we’re talking about it in 2026.
The legend gets a starring cameo in Steven Spielberg’s new alien conspiracy thriller Disclosure Day. Early in the film, a whistleblower character shows his girlfriend some stolen black-and-white “security footage.” It depicts a man who looks like Nixon greeting a heavyset man at a military base, and then walking him past glass cases holding dead alien bodies.
The movie never says “Jackie Gleason” out loud, when the girlfriend asks who the man with Nixon is, the character just replies, “Some old TV comedian.” But anyone who knows the legend instantly connects the dots.
Interestingly, Disclosure Day presents the event as real within the story. Screenwriter David Koepp basically explained that since the tale is already so well-known among UFO enthusiasts, folding it in as “true” was a fun, knowing wink to the audience. It’s a legend famous enough that Spielberg’s team knew fans would catch it.
The bottom line
The Nixon-Gleason alien story is almost certainly a tall tale, born in a tabloid, promoting a book that never existed, and contradicted by the president’s own schedule. As a piece of evidence for aliens, it’s basically worthless.
But as a piece of pop-culture folklore? It’s absolutely delightful, and its inclusion in a big Spielberg movie shows just how deeply this weird little legend has burrowed into UFO lore.
The truth is that the “great one” was a true believer who genuinely loved this stuff, so if anyone was going to star in an alien legend, it’s kind of perfect that it’s the guy who used to holler “To the moon, Alice!”
He may never have made it to the moon, or to those little embalmed visitors, but the story sure has legs. And now it’s immortalized on the big screen, dead aliens and all.
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Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
Hat Tips:
SlashFilm and Skeptoid (2013-2026), verified for the legend’s details (the 1973 Homestead Air Force Base story, the alien-body descriptions), the Beverly Gleason/National Enquirer 1983 origin, the never-published “bombshell book,” the Larry Warren 1986 confirmation claim, and the four-possibilities breakdown
Snopes and the Nixon Library daily diary (via reporting) (2018-2021), verified for the debunk, Nixon’s actual February 19, 1973 schedule (the ~40-minute golf tournament appearance, the helicopter to Key Biscayne), the “no Secret Service” implausibility, and the Nixon-confidant account that Nixon had no interest in UFOs
SlashFilm (June 2026), verified for the Disclosure Day recreation of the scene (the black-and-white footage, the “some old TV comedian” line, Gleason never being named), and screenwriter David Koepp’s explanation for presenting the legend as true in the film