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. Jackie 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.
Thanks to Grant Cameron and Phantoms and Monsters.
