Cordell Hull Sees Alien Beings
1939 - Washington DC, USA
This account is one of the more unusual legends in UFO folklore because it places an alleged government recovery of extraterrestrial bodies years before the Roswell incident. Here's a more engaging version that retains the information while flowing as a narrative:
Few figures in American history seem less likely to become part of UFO mythology than Cordell Hull. As the longest-serving U.S. Secretary of State under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the recipient of the 1945 Nobel Peace Prize for helping lay the foundation for the United Nations, Hull is remembered as a respected diplomat. Yet within UFO lore, his name is attached to one of the earliest and most enduring government cover-up stories.
According to the legend, sometime around 1939 or 1940, Hull invited his cousin, the Reverend Turner Hamilton Holt, to lunch at the White House. After their meal, Hull allegedly led Holt into a hidden underground sub-basement or exhibit hall beneath the building. There, Holt was supposedly shown an astonishing secret: several small humanoid bodies preserved inside large glass jars filled with formaldehyde, along with the wreckage of a mysterious craft unlike any known aircraft.
The story claims Hull explained that the government was keeping the discovery hidden because officials feared the public reaction if such information became known. Before leaving, Hull reportedly made his cousin swear an oath never to reveal what he had seen.
According to the tale, Rev. Holt honored that promise for the rest of his life. Only as he lay on his deathbed did he finally share the story with members of his family. After his passing, his daughters reportedly contacted UFO researchers, including investigators associated with the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), believing the account deserved to be preserved and investigated.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the story is its timeline. If true, it would mean the U.S. government possessed recovered extraterrestrial bodies and a crashed craft nearly a decade before the widely publicized Roswell incident of 1947. Because of this, the account has become one of the best-known "pre-Roswell" UFO conspiracy stories.
Over the years, the legend has been repeated in numerous UFO books and documentaries. It is prominently discussed in Dr. Irena Scott's Sacred Corridors: Secrets Behind the Real Project Blue Book and has even inspired works of fiction, including A.K. Kuykendall's Imperium Heirs, which weaves the alleged incident into a broader conspiracy narrative involving Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Despite its popularity, there is no historical evidence supporting the claim. No government documents, White House records, personal diaries, or contemporary accounts corroborate the story. As a result, historians and mainstream researchers regard it as family folklore or an urban legend rather than a verified historical event. Nevertheless, it remains one of the most intriguing and frequently discussed stories in UFO literature because it suggests that knowledge of extraterrestrial visitors may have existed within the highest levels of the U.S. government years before the modern UFO era officially began.