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DATE OF ARTICLE: March 29, 1989
SOURCE OF ARTICLE: Gazette
LOCATION: Hollywood, California
BYLINE: William L. Moore
UFOS...EXPLORING THE 'E.T.' PHENOMENON
By William L. Moore
One of the first conclusions an impartial observer must make
about the subject of UFOs is that rumors and circumstance play
far too great a role in what ought to be a more exacting quest
for knowledge. It is just such an observation which once led Dr.
Carl Sagan to comment dryly that UFOs "are more a matter for
religion and superstition than they are for science." While this
dismissal is perhaps unscientific in its own right, the point is
well taken. Attend any gathering of "UFO people" you want, and
simply listen. Rumors abound.
Perhaps worse, however, is that some of these rumors manage
to circulate for years (even decades) without anyone making a
reasonable effort to get to the bottom of them.
One of the most persistent of these is a story that
President Eisenhower visited Edwards Air Force Base in early
1954, and either viewed the bodies of dead aliens and the
wreckage of their craft, or met with live aliens on some sort of
diplomatic mission to earth. The story takes many forms, with
the common thread being that Ike mysteriously disappeared one
evening while on a vacation to Palm Springs, and that he was
spirited to Edwards to view (or meet) aliens. It is said that
he returned by dawn and shortly thereafter ordered absolute
secrecy about anything having to do with UFOs.
No doubt one of the reasons that this particular rumor has
continued to circulate for such a long time is that there are a
number of verifiable facts associated with it--some of them
rather curious. For example, President Eisenhower did indeed
make a trip to Palm Springs between February 17th and 24th, 1954,
and on the evening of Saturday, February 20th, he did disappear!
When members of the press learned that the president was not
where he should be, rumors ran rampant that he had either died or
was seriously ill. The story even managed to get onto a press
wire before being killed moments later. To quell the fuss, White
House Press Secretary James Haggerty called an urgent late
evening press conference to announce "solemnly" that the
president had been enjoying fried chicken earlier that evening,
had knocked a cap off a tooth, and had been taken to a local
dentist for treatment. When Ike turned up as scheduled the next
morning for an early church service, the matter seemed ended.
Although the Palm Springs trip was billed as a "vacation for
the president", the trip appears to have come up rather suddenly.
In addition, it is a matter of record that Ike had returned from
a quail shooting vacation in Georgia less than a week before
leaving for Palm Springs.
While the incidence of a local dentist being called upon to
treat a president of the United States is unusual enough that it
should constitute a rather memorable event for those involved,
the dentist's widow, in a June, 1979 interview, was curiously
unable to recall any specifics relating to her husband's alleged
involvement in the affair--not even the time of day it had
occurred. Yet her memory appeared flawless when asked to relate
details of her and her husband's attendance (by presidential
invitation) at a steak fry the following evening, where her
husband was introduced as "the dentist who had treated the
president". This would appear to suggest a cover story, the
details of which would have easily been repeated at the time, but
quite naturally forgotten 25 years later.
Research at the Eisenhower Library has uncovered two other
facts inconsistent with the dentist story. The first is that
while the library maintains an extensive index of records
relating to the president's health, there is no record of any
dental work having been performed at all during February, 1954.
A file on "Dentists" contains nothing concerning any such
incident either.
Secondly, there is a large file containing copies of all
sorts of acknowledgments which were sent by the White House to
people who had something to do with the Palm Springs trip. There
are letters, for example, to people who sent flowers, people who
met the airplane, people who had offered to play golf, etc.
There is even a thank you letter to the minister who presided
over the Sunday service Ike attended. Yet there is no record of
any acknowledgment having been sent to "the dentist who treated
the president." If the matter were as routine as Haggerty
attempts to make it appear, then the absence of these records
seems strangely inconsistent.
The rumor of the president's alleged visit to Edwards is not
a new one. UFO contactee fringe writers began making unsupported
claims about it less than two months after Ike's trip. So did a
bizarre fellow from the Hollywood hills named Gerald Light, who,
in an April 16, 1954 letter to the head of a Southern California
metaphysical organization, actually claimed to have been at
Edwards where he saw Ike, the saucers and the aliens. Light's
letter has been controversial for years and copies of it have
turned up in all sorts of places, including the National
Enquirer. Investigation into Mr. Light's background, however,
turned up the fact that he was an elderly mystic who believed
that psychic "out-of-body-experiences" were a logical extension
of the reality of life and should be treated as such. In the
final analysis, Light's alleged visit to Edwards was just such an
experience.
And so the story ends. Clearly something unusual occurred
involving the president on the evening of February 20, 1954.
Whether it was a trip to the dentist, a trip to see flying
saucers, or something altogether different and unrelated, no one
can say. It's the stuff rumors are made of.
================================================== ===============
credit Shadowlands
DATE OF ARTICLE: March 29, 1989
SOURCE OF ARTICLE: Gazette
LOCATION: Hollywood, California
BYLINE: William L. Moore
UFOS...EXPLORING THE 'E.T.' PHENOMENON
By William L. Moore
One of the first conclusions an impartial observer must make
about the subject of UFOs is that rumors and circumstance play
far too great a role in what ought to be a more exacting quest
for knowledge. It is just such an observation which once led Dr.
Carl Sagan to comment dryly that UFOs "are more a matter for
religion and superstition than they are for science." While this
dismissal is perhaps unscientific in its own right, the point is
well taken. Attend any gathering of "UFO people" you want, and
simply listen. Rumors abound.
Perhaps worse, however, is that some of these rumors manage
to circulate for years (even decades) without anyone making a
reasonable effort to get to the bottom of them.
One of the most persistent of these is a story that
President Eisenhower visited Edwards Air Force Base in early
1954, and either viewed the bodies of dead aliens and the
wreckage of their craft, or met with live aliens on some sort of
diplomatic mission to earth. The story takes many forms, with
the common thread being that Ike mysteriously disappeared one
evening while on a vacation to Palm Springs, and that he was
spirited to Edwards to view (or meet) aliens. It is said that
he returned by dawn and shortly thereafter ordered absolute
secrecy about anything having to do with UFOs.
No doubt one of the reasons that this particular rumor has
continued to circulate for such a long time is that there are a
number of verifiable facts associated with it--some of them
rather curious. For example, President Eisenhower did indeed
make a trip to Palm Springs between February 17th and 24th, 1954,
and on the evening of Saturday, February 20th, he did disappear!
When members of the press learned that the president was not
where he should be, rumors ran rampant that he had either died or
was seriously ill. The story even managed to get onto a press
wire before being killed moments later. To quell the fuss, White
House Press Secretary James Haggerty called an urgent late
evening press conference to announce "solemnly" that the
president had been enjoying fried chicken earlier that evening,
had knocked a cap off a tooth, and had been taken to a local
dentist for treatment. When Ike turned up as scheduled the next
morning for an early church service, the matter seemed ended.
Although the Palm Springs trip was billed as a "vacation for
the president", the trip appears to have come up rather suddenly.
In addition, it is a matter of record that Ike had returned from
a quail shooting vacation in Georgia less than a week before
leaving for Palm Springs.
While the incidence of a local dentist being called upon to
treat a president of the United States is unusual enough that it
should constitute a rather memorable event for those involved,
the dentist's widow, in a June, 1979 interview, was curiously
unable to recall any specifics relating to her husband's alleged
involvement in the affair--not even the time of day it had
occurred. Yet her memory appeared flawless when asked to relate
details of her and her husband's attendance (by presidential
invitation) at a steak fry the following evening, where her
husband was introduced as "the dentist who had treated the
president". This would appear to suggest a cover story, the
details of which would have easily been repeated at the time, but
quite naturally forgotten 25 years later.
Research at the Eisenhower Library has uncovered two other
facts inconsistent with the dentist story. The first is that
while the library maintains an extensive index of records
relating to the president's health, there is no record of any
dental work having been performed at all during February, 1954.
A file on "Dentists" contains nothing concerning any such
incident either.
Secondly, there is a large file containing copies of all
sorts of acknowledgments which were sent by the White House to
people who had something to do with the Palm Springs trip. There
are letters, for example, to people who sent flowers, people who
met the airplane, people who had offered to play golf, etc.
There is even a thank you letter to the minister who presided
over the Sunday service Ike attended. Yet there is no record of
any acknowledgment having been sent to "the dentist who treated
the president." If the matter were as routine as Haggerty
attempts to make it appear, then the absence of these records
seems strangely inconsistent.
The rumor of the president's alleged visit to Edwards is not
a new one. UFO contactee fringe writers began making unsupported
claims about it less than two months after Ike's trip. So did a
bizarre fellow from the Hollywood hills named Gerald Light, who,
in an April 16, 1954 letter to the head of a Southern California
metaphysical organization, actually claimed to have been at
Edwards where he saw Ike, the saucers and the aliens. Light's
letter has been controversial for years and copies of it have
turned up in all sorts of places, including the National
Enquirer. Investigation into Mr. Light's background, however,
turned up the fact that he was an elderly mystic who believed
that psychic "out-of-body-experiences" were a logical extension
of the reality of life and should be treated as such. In the
final analysis, Light's alleged visit to Edwards was just such an
experience.
And so the story ends. Clearly something unusual occurred
involving the president on the evening of February 20, 1954.
Whether it was a trip to the dentist, a trip to see flying
saucers, or something altogether different and unrelated, no one
can say. It's the stuff rumors are made of.
================================================== ===============
credit Shadowlands