Franklin D. Roosevelt

Eleanor's UFO Interest

2009-07-31T03:00:38Z

There were a number of UFO sightings that had occurred in March 1950, and at least one appeared to catch Eleanor Roosevelt's eye. These sighting reports may themselves have been inspired by the widely read Major Donald Keyhoe article on flying saucers in TRUE Magazine a month earlier.

A summary of the saucer items as detailed by UFO and Roswell historian David Rudiak from the Oakland Tribune found the following items:

March 21: "PILOT MEETS A FLYING DISC -- Veteran Airman Says It was Plenty Fast": Described a flying disc about 100 feet across that crossed the plane's path in front by about 1000 feet at an estimated speed of 500-600 mph. Also described possible ports or windows along the edge with light coming out.

March 22: "Saucer's Are 'Imagination' -- Discs Called Mental Figments,Flaming Meteors by Savants" : Describes a talk at the Berkeley Lions Club by retired astronomer Dr. Robert G. Aitken, former director of Lick Observatory. 95% are pure imagination and the other 5% flaming meteors. Says he's never seen anything he couldn't identify, but doesn't discount possibility that so-called Martian canals could be artificial.

March 22: "MARS (NOT DISCS) NEARING EARTH": Routine article about how Earth, Mars, and the Sun would all be lined up on March 23, with Mars making its closest approach in 10 years, "but scientists insist that it;s no basis for the reports of flying saucers."

March 24: "DISCS 'OLD STUFF' TO ADOLF, DUCE": A Nazi flying saucer story. An Italian scientist claimed that both Germany and Italy were designing and studyng flying discs as early as 1942. He claimed "the principle of the flying disc was simple and construction with light metal very easy. An Italian Professo and former deputy, senator, and minister of the national economy under Mussolini also expressed the opinion that "some great power is launching discs to study them." It also says that "reports of flying discs in Italian skies have been frequent."

March 26: "Piccard Claims He May Be Responsible for Flying Saucers" -- Famed pioneering balloonist Dr. Jean Piccard thinks many instances of reported flying saucers are caused by his or other high-altitude research balloons. Most are caused by people's imagination. A few remaining reported cases by scientifically trained people have no clear explanation.

March 29: "Two Boys, 14, See 'Saucers' -- One Spotted At Night, Other in Daylight; Descriptions Vary": Two separate sightings, one from Oakland, the other from Albany, California. The Oakland night sighting through binoculars was of a whirling luminous white ball trailing smoke or vapor, close to earth, that came over the house, circled around, then disappeared toward town. Whole family saw it. The Albany daylight sighting was of a spinning, white, cone-shaped object the size of a small airplane that stopped overhead before heading east out of sight.

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The article it is believed caught Eleanor’s eye was the following:

"PILOT MEETS A FLYING DISC -- Veteran Airman Says It was Plenty Fast"

LITTLE ROCK, March 21 -- (AP) -- Arkansas' first flying saucer in nearly three years was reported last night--and by a veteran airline pilot.

Capt. Jack Adams of Little Rock, pilot of a Chicago & Southern Airlines plane en route from memphis, Tenn. to Houston, Tex., radioed the C & S operations office here that he had sighted the object near Stuttgart, Ark.

On landing here a few minutes later, Adams described the object As circular and "about the size of a DC-3."

At Houston Adams said: “The object, I'd judge, was about 1000 feet in front and above us. We were headed almost due west and this object crossed our course from the south. It was headed due north."

Adams, who was more than 7000 hours in the air, said the disc Appeared to be about 100 feet in diameter and was traveling at a terrific rate of speed--"500 to 600 miles an hour."

"There was a bright white light flashing intermittently from the top of the thing," he said, "and around the edge were what appeared to be ports, something like windows in an airplane. There was a light coming from the ports, but not a bright one."

Adams said he saw no vapor trail nor any exhaust flame that might indicate a source of power. It made no noise that he could hear over the sound of his own engines. "I have no idea what it was," he said, "but I'm convinced it was in controlled flight. My guess is that it's something developed either by the Army or Navy."

Thanks to UFO historian Barry Greenwood we have an actual 2-page transcript of the TV show "Today with Mrs. Roosevelt." The show was on politics but did include a UFO section on the sighting by Capt. Jack Adams. Adams was a guest on the show.

FDR's Secretary of State and the Alien Bodies (1939)

2009-07-31T03:11:02Z

Cordell Hull saw Aliens in Glass Containers

William E. Jones writes, "I thought your readers should be aware of the Cordell Hull story that alien artifacts were in our hands in 1939." In early December of 1999 the Center of UFO Studies received a letter from the daughter of the Reverend Turner Hamilton Holt: "Today I want to share some knowledge that has been, by request, kept secret in our family since sometime in World War II. This concerns something my father was shown by his cousin Cordell Hull, the Secretary of State under Franklin Roosevelt. Snip, my father, who was young, brilliant, and sound of mind, told us this story because he didn't want the information to be lost.

Cordell Hull

One day when my father was in D.C,. Cordell swore him to secrecy and took him to a sub-basement in the U.S. Capitol building, and showed him an amazing sight:

(1) Four large glass jars holding 4 creatures unknown to my father or Cordell [and],

(2) A wrecked round craft of some kind nearby.

Depiction of Aliens in Containers

"My father wanted my sister and I to make this information known long after he and Cordell were dead, because he felt it was a very important bit of information. We have researched your group {Mufon} and feel it is the most reliable group in the country. We hope that you will research and search this information. The jars with creatures in formaldehyde and the wrecked craft are some where! "Cordell said they were afraid they would start a panic if the public found out about it." Sincerely, Lucile Andrew, Ashland, Ohio.

Cordell Hull was one of the greatest statesmen of the 20th Century with absolutely no apparent reason to tell this story unless it was true, especially at a time when stories of flying saucers and their alien drivers had not yet become part of our culture. Hull was elected U.S. Senator 1931-1937, as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and became the Secretary of State under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in March 1933, the longest in American history until 1944, when he resigned because of ill health. He was also offered the Vice Presidency and in 1945, Cordell Hull won the 1945 Nobel Prize for Peace.

Reverend Holt and Hull were both born in Pickett County and were cousins and friends. Holt attained a Doctor in Theology degree from Ashland Theological Seminary, and was a minister at the Shenandoah Christian Church in Greenwich, Ohio. He was a community leader, and wrote a book entitled Life's Convictionss. He married Vina May Clark and they had three daughters. Two of the daughters claim they had been told about the creatures by their father. Lucile's original letter essentially tells the story as her father told it to her when she was a teenager. Unfortunately, Lucile said that she was too young to really pay much attention to what her father told her but Allene the mother of Eloise, the co-author of this story was told the same story as her sister. Both sisters assured us that they remember the stories independently. Reverend Holt described the entities in the glass jars as "creatures, a term common for his day.." He never referred to them as "aliens" or "extraterrestrials." He never said where they came from.

Depiction of Flying Saucer

Lucile stated that his experience happened in the "late 1930s," probably 1939. The material that was nearby the less than four feet tall creatures was described as "silver metallic." She also remembers him referring to the material as being a "vehicle" that appeared to have been taken apart and was "in pieces." He said the color of this material wasn't a color that he had seen before, but for the lack of a better word he used "silver." Reverend Holt was not the sort of person to make up such a wild story and, the sisters feel that by telling the story they are following their father's wishes.

Barbara A. Wolamin, "the curator U.S. Capitol building," chuckled a bit after being told the story. She said, "She had never heard about these creatures being stored at the Capitol, but she did confirm there was a sub-basement that was divided into storage rooms back then. She said that the building had been significantly changed over the years, so in a small way, part of Reverend Holt's story checked out. After Cordell Hull left government service he wrote his memoirs in a two-volume book set.

No reference, to this story appeared in these pages, in his papers in the Library of Congress. Numerous experts and libraries were contacted and there has been no confirmation for the story. If four alien bodies and other world technology were retrieved in1939, what would that do to our interpretation of the U.S.

Government's involvement in UFO research? One would assume prior knowledge would have made the government ready for an event like Roswell and that the Roswell retrieval was more efficient because of that. This is a story that truly deserves further investigation.

Thanks to William E. Jones, MUFON State Director for Ohio. Dr. Irena Scott and CUFOS International

UFO Reporter 2002

Images created by Casebook Productions

The Battle of Los Angeles - West Coast Air Raid: Unidentified Object

2009-07-31T03:18:36Z

Los Angeles, California
February 25, 1942

Wendy Connors:

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by the Japanese Imperial Navy on December 7, 1941, America rushed to prepare for war in the Pacific. The West Coast of the United States was considered the most likely area for an invasion from Japan. Consequently, it became imperative to quickly establish an air defense, and provide for procedures the public could use in case of attack from Japan.

These defense procedures included establishing an Air Warden Contingent, as well as employing normal blackout procedures, which were being used in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) at the time.

At approximately 2:25 a.m. on February 25, 1942, the air raid sirens were activated by the military and Los Angeles, California was systematically blacked out. People scrambled from their beds in a panic. Thousands of Air Raid Wardens went to their assigned posts. Something had been spotted in the air approaching the city and the possibility of enemy attack was exceptionally real to a nation now at war.

Not knowing what was approaching the city, the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade began firing their anti-aircraft guns at the target. Firing continued for almost an hour. Later, it was learned that three people had been killed from shell fragments of the anti-aircraft guns and three others died of heart failure due to the ensuing panic. Secondary to the loss of civilian lives was that numerous homes and business had been destroyed. The air raid warning was lifted at 7:21 a.m.

It is a strange fact that the Army Air Corps 4th Interceptor Command’s aircraft were warmed up and ready to go throughout the whole ordeal, but orders to action was never received. It appears obvious that the “enemy” over Los Angeles was neither Japanese military aircraft nor U.S. commercial aircraft.

Thousands of witnesses to the incident had described the enemy aircraft as a large unknown object that had remained motionless over the city during the entire time it was being fired upon. This object(s) then slowly began moving over Santa Monica and Long Beach before disappearing completely from view.

The following morning the Los Angeles Times headline read, “Army Says Alarm Real.” Mrs. H.G. Landis was shown looking over a pillow that had been shredded by shrapnel and one resident holding an unexploded 12 lb. Anti-aircraft shell.

The Army, in order to cover itself over the ramifications from the incident, attempted to come up with an explanation to satisfy the press and Congress. On February 26, 1942 General George C. Marshall wrote a secret memorandum to President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempting to explain the Los Angeles incident.

Blaming the Los Angeles Air Raid incident over “war nerves,” Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, came under attack from the press. The explanation was too flimsy. The Long Beach Independent wrote, “There is a mysterious reticence about the whole affair and it appears some form of censorship is trying to halt discussion of the matter.”

Interesting is the fact that no enemy planes were shot down during the incident and no foreign country admitted to such an attack. General Marshall’s letter to President Roosevelt explaining the incident is peppered with such phrases as, “…probably over Los Angeles…may have been involved…if they were... etc.,” leads to several possible conclusions. Either the Army was inept as to being able to shoot down an airplane remaining stationary over Los Angeles for over an hour, or the first steps in the long road of government secrecy regarding unidentified flying objects had been taken.

Whichever of the two possible conclusions is the truth, the fact remains that General Marshall was placed in an embarrassing position, and his memorandum to President Roosevelt was almost child-like in its explanation. Not only did General Marshall have the unpleasant duty to notify the President and deal with the realities of civilian casualties, he faced the possibility that reality was transparent; there was more to the incident than common sense and logic could dictate.

General George C. Marshall would be the first major military leader of the twentieth century to face the unidentified flying object phenomenon, but he would not be the last.

The Battle of Los Angeles - General Marshall to Roosevelt memo

2009-07-31T03:22:03Z

General George Marshall Secret Memo to President Roosevelt about the unidentified objects over Los Angeles on February 25, 1942

The Battle of Los Angeles - FDR to Stimson

2009-07-31T03:26:14Z

President Roosevelt writes Secretary of War Harry Stimson concerning the air raid over Los Angeles on February 25th. The letter seems to indicate the event was not seen as a UFO event.