There's a Legend That President Eisenhower Really Met Aliens — but Is It True?

Ryan Murphy, the creator of American Horror Story, has always been a bit of a maestro when it comes to taking mysteries from history and weaving his own supernatural theories into them. We first got a taste of it when The Black Dahlia murder was shown in the Murder House in Season 1.

We watched the disappearance of The Roanoke Colony in 1585 be reduced to the plot of vengeful ghosts. And in AHS: Death Valley, we're left wondering did Dwight D. Eisenhower meet aliens?

This is an incredible urban legend that has been kicking around since the early '50s. American Horror Story: Death Valley starts off with a fictionalized version of the supposed encounter.

In Feb. 1954, President Eisenhower was vacationing in Palm Springs, Calif. when he abruptly disappeared. The press, not knowing what was going on, mistakenly sent out a bulletin stating, "Eisenhower died tonight of a heart attack in Palm Springs." It was retracted.

There are two theories as to where President Eisenhower went. The first comes from Eisenhower's press secretary at the time, James Hagerty, who claimed the president chipped a porcelain cap while eating what we assume was the world's toughest chicken wing. The second is that he was called away to meet aliens.

A few months after this alleged alien encounter, a self-proclaimed mystic said he was at Edwards Air Force base that night and saw the president with both flying saucers and aliens. This story even made its way to The National Enquirer where all the best alien media lives.

Speaking with The Washington Post about this incident for its 50th anniversary, Michael Salla, a former American University professor said that "there was telepathic communication" between Eisenhower and the aliens.

He went on to refer to the aliens by a nickname regularly used in UFO circles: Nordics. They are called this because they, apparently, closely resemble Scandinavian people. Evidently, they were here to share with us their superior technology as well as their spiritual teachings.

The only thing President Eisenhower had to do was to eliminate America's nuclear weapons. Why it's almost as if this is a cover story for a message about the dangers of nuclear arms.

So did Eisenhower's close encounter actually happen? According to Jim Leyerzapf, an archivist at the Eisenhower library, "Not to our knowledge. There's nothing in the archives that indicates that."

In fact, this question is asked so often they had to hire a person who specializes in it. In 2004, that person was Herb Pankratz, who specializes in transportation. And what is a UFO if not another mode of transportation?

Herb is in full support of the dentist story. He attributes this certainty to an article written by dental historian James Mixson titled, "A History of Dwight D. Eisenhower's Oral Health," published in the 1995 issue of the Bulletin of the History of Dentistry.

In it, Mixson reports, "On the fateful night of Feb. 20, 1954, Ike chipped the porcelain cap of his 'upper left central incisor,' and it was repaired by Dr. Francis A. Purcell." However, Purcell died in 1974 and there are no records in his office.

A letter from a scientist buried within declassified British Minister of Defense UFO files asked about a confrontation between an RAF aircraft and a UFO during WWII. The author of the letter claims to be the grandson of a man who served with the Royal Air Force.

The grandfather apparently witnessed Winston Churchill discussing what to do about the UFO sighting with General Eisenhower. Evidently, the Prime Minister decided to cover this up because it could incite mass panic.

This story suggests that Eisenhower may have been aware of the possible existence of aliens before that supposed 1954 encounter. And he isn't the only president who has had to deal with whisperings of extraterrestrials.

In Nov. 2011, two petitions were sent to the White House demanding that the U.S. government formally acknowledge aliens have visited Earth. The Obama White House had this to say: "The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that any extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race."

When thinking about this question Carl Sagan said it best when he said, “The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”