It must have been reassuring to some that the leader of the free world in this time of world crisis was sitting by a warm fireplace nursing his cold, drinking hot toddies and playing bridge. Actually, this was not the case. At about 8:00 that Friday morning, Ike was not in his cottage. As the journalists and technicians were starting to stir and thinking about shaving, hot coffee and breakfast, their leader had taken a back road north to Spence AFB during the night and had skipped out. Air Force One was some 1250 miles away at 13,000 ft., somewhere above the west Texas/ New Mexico border, and Ike was not thinking about hot toddies and bridge. The President was on his way to Holloman AFB to one of the most important meetings of his life.

Ike and his advisors had been preparing material, collecting statistics and going over the rationale for continued nuclear testing. He, as the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, was also seen as the guardian or spokesman for the free world's nuclear arsenal. The arms race had began as soon as WW II was over and nuclear race was shifting in to high gear. The USA alone, up to 1955, had conducted 189 nuclear tests above ground, underground, under water and in the atmosphere.

The Russians had conducted some 90 nuclear tests since 1949 and had exploded their first hydrogen bomb in 1953. Ike was not sure how the meeting would go, but his advisors had prepared him as well as they could. He was very sure atomic energy would be at the top of the agenda. He and his few aides on board were informed by a crewman that they would begin the descent to Holloman soon. They buckled their seat belts and waited.

On one side of the huge plane could be seen the town of Alamogordo, and in the distance, the dual A shaped runways of Holloman AFB. As the Lockheed completed its final turn, to the west could be seen the San Andreas Mountains, and to the north, the long Tularosa Valley stretching into the distance. Above the white haze was a clear azure blue sky. It was going to be another beautiful day in New Mexico.

Part 3

Shortly after the US Air Force became a separate branch of the service, Alamogordo Air Base became Holloman AFB. It was named in honor of Colonel George V. Holloman, a pioneer in Air Force research and development. At one time in the early fifties, Holloman was a far-flung satellite of the Air Force Missile Test Center at Patrick AFB in Florida. In September of 1952 it was designated as a permanent Air Force installation.

The old Alamogordo airfield had been a training base for heavy bombers. The bombing range some 38 miles wide and 64 miles long, proved to be an ideal location for the new guided missile program which began in 1946-47. But that was fifteen years earlier. Today the president of the United States was landing at Holloman. It was a smooth landing as landings go. Dual tires on the concrete skid-marked runway felt rough at first. But after the wheels of the big Lockheed got up to speed, things smoothed out. Gradually the sagebrush came into focus, and the four powerful Wright engines took on the familiar sound of props under reduced power.

The big Lockheed Constellation in passenger service in those days carried over 125 passengers, but there were fewer than twenty aides and secret service men in the main cabin with the crew of fourteen each at his station. Some in a special compartment behind the cockpit, two in the small galley, and several in the aft passenger area. Each deep in his own thoughts, each glued to a window looking for something to break the monotony of the barren landscape. At about 7,000 feet into the landing, Major Bill Draper, the pilot, started reversing the engines, and the plane slowed measurably and became louder. When the noise died down, the plane was in a slow taxi towards the end of the runway. As the sleek Lockheed reached the turn-around at the end of the runway, Draper slowly put on the brakes of the left set of dual wheels, and the plane pivoted around to the port (left) side. Air Force One taxied back up the runway about 75 yds. and stopped. All engines were shut down.

There were probably 300 people with a vantage point on this side of the base, who saw Air Force One land, and as it did, they called others to other windows, work stations and vantage points. It must have seemed very eerie for the president's plane to be seen sitting out there almost a half mile away, alone and quiet. No red carpet, no band, no honor parade, just a few horned meadowlarks calling in the distance. Eventually, the base workers returned to their stations, typists resumed typing, stenographers turned on their dictaphones, phones rang and were answered. And always the question was asked: Is Ike here? What's going on? The civilians and military on the base had been told that while the president was here, this would be a "business as usual" day. It was hard, with so much excitement but everyone carried on.

A few minutes earlier, Col. Sharp, the base commander, and several officers had gone to the base ops tower to see the president's plane land. The first communication they heard about 8:10 was "HOLLOMAN TOWER, THIS IS AIR FORCE 7885 TEN MILES EAST OF MARYHILL." They requested landing instructions, other traffic in the area, and base wind direction. They were assigned runway 13 (short for 130 degrees.) The Holloman runways in those days formed a gigantic letter A, running northwest to southeast. The runway they were assigned was the farthest away from the hangars and workshops. It was obvious to base personnel that what was happening or going to happen was as far away as it could be. Little could be seen unless one had a vantage point and binoculars. Phones all over the base were very busy, many questions were asked, is he still out on the runway? What's he doing now? What's going on? What's happening? And the invariable answer: We don't know.

But about ten minutes after the plane landed, the radar officers gave instructions to shut off all radar controlled from a room under the control tower. The enlisted men had been told only about five minutes earlier about shut down. Col. Sharp could probably hear some of the men in the stairwell mumbling about the base being blind as the men headed outside to have a smoke. Technically, the colonel was on leave today. He had turned base operations over to his deputy base commander as long as the president was here. He felt it his duty to be with him with no distractions.

There were a dozen visual patrols out around the base and some of the up-range small radars were on, but the larger base Dopplar radar had been shut down by orders from Washington. A phone rang in the tower with a report of two unidentified objects passing over Range Road 12. Then a minute later the bogies were over Range Road 7 only a few minutes from the runways. Men in the tower swung their glasses to the north in the morning haze. Then something glinted in the sun, then something else just below it. A report came in of a third bogie five minutes behind the first two. The tower personnel who did not know what these were, were stunned. No tail, no wings, no motors. Just round objects approaching the president's plane sitting alone on the far runway with a covey of base officers in the tower, including Col. Sharp. They knew something big was up. They reported the objects, logged them and did their job which was "business as usual."

The two objects stopped about 300 ft. over Air Force One, and one descended on the far side of the plane and gently touched about 200 feet ahead of the plane. The other hovered briefly and then came across the near runway towards the big hangars and some shop buildings. It took up a position somewhere above the buildings over the tarmac. The disc had a good vantage point of anything that might come towards the president's plane and the disc on the ground.

A brief look at the public view of UFOs in 1955 would not cause any eyestrain. Only a few scattered newspaper reports since 1947 had made national news, and in those days the military were likely to be believed when they released cover stories. Kenneth Arnold had seen only reflections. Everyone got a chuckle at the Roswell balloon story, and the blips seen on radar and over the White House in July of 1952.....just sea gulls. Donald Keyhoe was just getting the NICAP idea started and several books by Scully and Adamski were considered just men's magazine sensationalism. So it was with some disbelief that two UFOs had come to Holloman AFB in Feb. of 1955. There was little background for believing in them at all as extraterrestrial. Some who saw or heard about the two craft at the base that day thought they might be new German innovations. Some thought they were ours others thought they might be Russian.

German scientists assigned to supervise missile launches in Operation Paperclip at the near by White Sands Proving Grounds were highly respected, and some German scientists were working in various labs at Holloman. "Business as usual" may have been the motto for the day, but many of those with a vantage point had someone reporting what could be seen. Soon after the UFO landed in front of Air Force One, a man many assumed to be the president, came to the doorway of the plane, descended the portable stairs and approached the saucer on the ground. Some sort of a hatch had been opened a few minutes before and had folded down to become a small ramp. The man walked up the ramp, stood briefly at the opening, shook hands with someone, and went inside. Observers thought the period of time to be about 45 minutes. When he emerged from the craft, he walked towards Air Force One. Part of this time he was facing the observers, and most were sure it was Ike. He wore no hat, and many recognized the hairline and his erect military walk.

PART V
Part 4

Our main witnesses were Airman 2nd Class Wilbur Kirklin (pseudonym) and his friend Dorsey Moore, who were stationed at the base hospital in 1955. Their only actual sighting that day was of Air Force One taking off about 4:45 p.m. on Feb. 11th, 1955. Kirklin reports as follows:

"In the spring of 1955 I was assigned to the Holloman AFB hospital. In February we heard that the president was coming to Holloman. It was general knowledge that there was going to be an honor parade for him. Captain Reiner asked me if I wanted to participate in the early morning parade. I declined and he said, OK, that I would be on duty that day. The day before it was to take place, it was called off. We believe the secret nature of the visit was probably not explained until several days before the president's arrival. When this word was received, the honor parade was then called off.

On or about Feb. 11 at 8:00 in the morning, Kirklin began his shift at the base hospital. Another airman named Dorsey was due to be there also. Kirklin said that when I got there the nurse asked me where Dorsey was. A clerk typist named Dorothea Thorenson replied that she had seen him taking his wife to the commissary (large base shopping area) that morning. When Dorsey finally arrived he asked me if I had seen the disc hovering over the flight line. I told him I hadn't, but I was visualizing something small you held in your hand like a track and field disc. I asked him what it was made of. Dorsey said it looked to him like polished stainless steel or aluminum. When I asked about its size, he said twenty - thirty feet in diameter, and did I want to see it. Of course I did. Dorsey said it was there when he took his wife to the commissary, and was still there when they came out thirty minutes later. "Go out in front of the hospital and look towards the hangars ," he said. I asked the nurse for permission. Nurse turns to doctor, then says, "No. Stay here." (probably about 9 - 9:15 a.m.)

Author: From several sources, we have learned that the base department heads had been asked to keep normal activities going that day. This may have been an attempt to comply with this "business as usual" mode during the president's visit. Another airman relates his experience on the way to coffee later that afternoon. He had been walking behind two officers. One officer was the duty OD. The one dressed in khakis asked the other officer why he was in his dress blues that day. The other officer explained that he was "officer of the day. I was at base ops (control tower) when Air Force One came in this morning. As soon as it landed we shut down the radar."

The first officer asked why they would turn off the radar and learned that they were ordered to from higher up. We think the Doppler radar may interfere with the saucer's guidance system.....or something. Both came in over the president's plane. One landed on the active, and the other hovered for awhile, then moved over to the flight line. (This one was apparently seen by Airman Dorsey and an electrician earlier in the day.) The president left his plane............... and went towards it. A door opened, a ramp came down and he went inside for 45 minutes. The first officer asked who all saw this; the other officer said, the personnel in the base ops control tower as they had binoculars. When asked if anyone saw who was inside the saucer, the officer replied, "No, it was faced pretty much away from the tower at a sort of oblique angle."

It would be appropriate here to bring in a rather interesting report received from a lady whose father was a civilian electrician at the Holloman base. He worked out during the day on the base with the electrical crew, out of the base electrical shop. He had been an electrician in the army in Korea and had gotten the job in 1953 or 1954 because he was a vet. She said, "We were in Albuquerque at the time. Dad worked there in '54 and came home on weekends. We moved down there in the summer of '54 when I was in the fourth grade. Mom wanted us together. Sometime after Christmas of 1955 Dad came home one night kind of shook up. He would tell the story for years when we'd ask him to, and later on, to the grandchildren as well. We called it 'When Dad became a fireman.' I asked the daughter if the story got better with the telling each time. She said no, but as he got older, we enjoyed it more because of his gestures.

They worked out of a 3/4 pickup with a telephone co. truck bed (lots of compartments.) Dad told us " They could see the president's plane for most of the landing. At first it circled, getting lined up for the runway. We had a view of the runway between some buildings where we were working. They could see about 400 to 500 feet of it. The plane landed, came through the part they could see . They expected to hear it taxi up to unload , they all wanted to see the president. He they waited and waited . It just stayed out there someplace and shut down its engines. They saw others looking out that way, and some men on the roof of a hangar looking to the SE. One of the crew suggested that someone climb a pole to report what was going on, so Dad volunteered. He strapped on his steel climbers. Dad said he had learned to always keep the sun at his back while climbing a pole in order not to get blinded. Dad said he got near the top of the pole and head someone shout, but did not hear the words. He then saw the truck driving off and some of the crew running toward a hangar. He noticed the men on the roof running back away from the front of the hangar, and one pointing out towards the flight line. Dad swung around on the pole to look out on the airfield and see what all the commotion was about. Then he said he saw it...this "pie tin like thing" heading towards him about 150 yards away. "And comin' right at me," he said. Dad always said he felt very lonely up there with that thing, and decided to come down fast,as he was about 40 feet up. He said he looped his climbing strap out and got down that 40 feet in about five seconds, his steel spikes hitting only occasionally to slow him down."

Back at the shop when the story was told, he was nicknamed "the fireman" for getting down that pole so fast. Apparently, soon after this incident, the saucer just stopped and hovered about 300 feet over the flight line while the meeting took place on the far runway near the UFO. Dad said once the people there got over the initial shock, many just stood and watched it. He said it was a beautiful sight, and it had an occasional wobble. He recalled that later that day many neon lights needed replacing. (Author: This was apparently the saucer that hovered over the flight line that Dorsey and his wife saw around 8:45-9:00 a.m.) His daughter said they all thought it was one of our secret aircraft and the president had come to see. Dad said he never considered it anything but ours until years later when the UFO shape got publicized more (in the 1960s or so). He told us" it was then that he understood what was so secret".

Part 5

In the previous issues we have followed President Eisenhower from a hunting trip in Thomasville, GA, to a secret departure from Spence AFB to Holloman AFB in NM. The president was supposedly in his cottage for 36 hours at Milestone Plantation, when he slipped out for his trip west. By previous arrangement, his plane parked at the end of the runway, a UFO landed in front of the plane, and the president went aboard for a 45-minute meeting. Another UFO was seen by base personnel hovering over the Holloman AFB flight line during the duration of the meeting.

Our main witness, Airman Kirklin on or about Feb. 11, 1955 was on duty at the base hospital. He continues the events as he experienced them from this date. Airman Kirklin returned from lunch about 12:50 p.m., Dorothea the civilian typist and the nurse asked him if if he had seen Dorsey. "I said I hadn't. At 2:30 p..m., coffee break time, I walked down the hall and saw Dorsey coming in. I asked where he had been. He replied, at a meeting. I told him to tell the nurse and Dorothea that I was headed for coffee. After supper I noticed the lights still on in the flight surgeon's office and went over to turn them off. Surprisingly, Dr. Reiner was there and was talking to a Lt. Colonel. The Lt Colonel was telling him that he had heard the president and Col. Sharp speaking to about 225 people at the supply hangar." He said there were military personnel and civilian workers including a few female office workers. Dr.Reiner wanted to know what the president said.

The Lt. Colonel said that he just gave them a pep talk and said to keep up the good work, etc. He only spoke five minutes or so, and then Col. Sharp spoke for another twenty minutes or so. His speech included warnings such as, "What you see here stays here" and something about the "fine security traditions", etc. at the base. Dr. Reiner's friend also said the commander-in-chief and Col. Sharp spoke once or twice more at the base theater which held over 200 people. Apparently, Ike told each group that he wasn't supposed to be there that day. Kirklin reported to the author, "If the president of the United States did not know where he was supposed to be, how could we?"

The author believes that there was considerable pressure on the Holloman base personnel in the short run, not to let it the president's visit be known. This secrecy was probably aimed at the press in Thomasville as well as the national press, so that Ike would not receive embarrassing questions later or when he got back to Thomasville ,the next day The ruse worked, as there was not a hint of Eisenhower being away from his cottage in Thomasville in the 36 hours he was away from the journalists' view.

It is more than likely that this meeting at Holloman AFB was not Ike's first visit with the ETs. The meeting was too short. It is possible that there were some negotiations going on and that something had to be clarified that took just a little time. There is some circumstantial evidence that President Eisenhower met the ETs at MUROC (later Edwards AFB) a year before. The press said, "Ike went missing for a few hours" which would give him the opportunity to meet with or see ET craft or dead bodies which were believed to be at Edwards in Feb. of 1954.

Grant Cameron, a Canadian UFO researcher and expert on presidential associations with UFOs, told the author that there was an entourage of some 250 people with Ike the year before at Muroc. It is thought that to simplify things, Ike slipped away from the press at Thomasville, this time with the immediate goal of keeping the press off his trail. The second consideration might have been to keep other countries, including the Russians and the Communist block out of the loop in regard to the rendezvous with the UFO at Holloman.

Why Holloman? It was remote, it was secure, and above all, it was away from the press. Apparently, the Holloman secret from 1955 did not begin to be revealed until forty years later, six years after the Soviet Union collapsed. To the author's knowledge, Kirklin is the first to bring this story out, naming witnesses. To be sure, the story has blanks, but most good plausible stories do. All that can be expected of anyone is that they simply tell with honesty what they know, heard, and saw. Kirklin has done this, and his story checks out. I asked him once why he had come forward. He replied that the main reason he shared his recollections and memories was that he was tired of government secrecy. He said that if he hadn't shared it, he would be part of the cover-up. Kirklin is now a retired inspector for the US Dept. of Agriculture, living in the midwest.

Kirklin related one other story about when Ike left the base. This was to be Kirklin's only actual sighting that day. The balance of what is written here was what had been told him by others. Kirklin's words are as follows:
"After work I was in my barracks room when I was called out to see Air Force One fly overhead. It flew over the residential area of the base. This is a NO FLYING zone for all military aircraft. Only the President could get away with it."

Saturday morning Feb. 12th
After five hrs. or so of flying, We believe Ike's plane landed back at Spence AFB near Moultrie Ga. By 1 AM or so Ike was back in his cottage. He had one planned activity this day, he was going to autograph a photo for some Georgia State Policeman in Thomasville. Some of the newsmen thought he looked a little tired. After the autograph signing it was back to Milestone and seclusion and probably some much needed rest.

Sunday Feb. 13th
Ike had a full schedule in and around Thomasville this Sunday starting about 11PM. His party motored to the Greenwood Plantation for lunch and had a photo op near the famous Big Oak in Thomasville. Then his party drove 35 miles north where the big Air Force One was warming up. Ike and his party left from Spence about 3 PM for Washington DC. The next day was special for the Eisenhowers; it was the 39th anniversary of their engagement, in 1916. After his return to Washington, Ike's appointment schedule listed three important people: Admiral A. W. Radford, Chmn. of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; C. Irwin Wilson, Sec'y. of Defense; and John Foster Dulles, Sec'y. of State.

As the author looks back, Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, was probably the best president we could have had at that time. He was decisive, highly respected, and an excellent leader. He was much admired overseas while serving as the supreme commander of NATO. It is thought that his administration had dealings with and a dialogue with beings from other planets, a presidential first. With our system of government, however, he was not able to exert as much influence over government policy and direction that some thought he might have.

In some correspondence from the United Kingdom, a man who had access to super secret MI5 archives, wrote to the author, "In the 1953-1955 timeline, the ET visitors had landed at several places and asked for a meeting with the leader of the most powerful country on earth." He believed that the meeting at Holloman was one of the first meetings with that race of aliens. (He thinks there were two or three separate alien groups in all that met with the Eisenhower administration during his presidency.) This source said that, "the top item on the meeting agendas was continued nuclear research and testing with more and more powerful weapons." The MI5 source alluded to a Russian nuclear bomb test in September of 1951 that was half the size of the first 1949 bomb with twice the power. He said, "the visitors showed great concern over our hydrogen bomb detonation 1952." (Nov. 1, 1952 at Eniwetok atoll, 500 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.) UFO sightings dramatically increased over military/ nuclear facilities and later launch sites for well over three decades.

The MI5 source indicated that there was considerable pressure on President Eisenhower to exert some influence over his government's accelerated nuclear testing programs. Apparently, those in government who knew of the alien concerns decided to form a committee to advise the President concerning these matters. He believes this group was initially called the alternative committee. Might this have been the beginnings of the group that, today, is believed to be the extremely powerful worldwide special interest entity which exerts considerable influence on UFO secrecy? It is obvious to this writer that our Government is not merely covering up whether UFOs exist but that we have had contact with ETs and they have objected strenuously to our nuclear testing, stockpiles arms race.

All of these pressures on Pres. Eisenhower few knew about at the time. The entire world was shocked, but probably not surprised, when Pres. Eisenhower had his first heart attack in September 1955, in Denver, Colorado. He convalesced there in a civilian hospital for six weeks before returning to Washington and a reduced schedule. His domestic difficulties were, however, just beginning, when that Dec. in Montgomery, AL, a tired domestic worker named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. The resulting boycott lasted some 54 weeks. Ike recovered from his heart trouble and ran for a second term and won, in 1956. He weathered the Little Rock crisis, saw the Soviets send up Sputnik in 1957, he supported the formation of NASA in 1958, and he saw the first US satellite, the Explorer, launched earlier that year.

On Jan. 17, 1961, Eisenhower gave his farewell address in which he warned of the growing power of the "military/ industrial complex." Ike returned to his Gettysburg farm for the remainder of his retirement, but he again cautioned that, "long continued military expenditures could breed potential dangers to our way of life." After a long illness, the 34th president of the United States died on March 28, 1969. Mamie joined him a decade later, in 1979. Both are interred in the Eisenhower Library site in Abilene, Kansas.

The author would like to hear from you if you were on the base in 1955 or living in or near Alomorgodo. Was there any talk at the grade school or high school? Did anyone see or hear Air Force One that day? Do any parents recall being at the base that day? Please contact Art Campbell. E-mail artc@connpoint.net