Searchlight

One of my interests in life besides film is Ufology. I love UFOs, and stories about them. I came across a story too good to be true, involving Richard Nixon and Jackie Gleason. In 1978, Beverly McKittrick, Jackie Gleason’s, Ex-wife, gave an interview for a magazine and where she described the night then President Richard Nixon, Showed up at the Miami home of Jackie Gleason with no security or anyone else with them. Nixon took his friend Jackie Gleason to Homestead Air force base to show him a crate that he claimed to contain a UFO. He then proceeded to show Gleason to the back part of a hangar where it is described that 3 coke freezers Housed the bodies of alien lifeforms that had been in a crash. Beverly, claims that Gleason, had been golfing earlier in the day with Nixon at his own celebrity golf tournament. That is when Gleason, asked Nixon, if he knew anything about UFOs as president. Nixon said he had heard somethings but nothing to exciting. The part of the story that perplexed me was the idea that Nixon showed up by himself, without any secret service or a driver with him. I investigated and confirmed that 1. Gleason had in fact hosted a celebrity golf tournament where Gleason and Nixon did play together on the day and time Beverly said this took place. 2. Nixon left his security behind on more than one occasion. He eventually had his security detail tripled. His code name for the secret service was Searchlight. Now with the admission that there is in fact UFOs in the atmosphere being verified by the U.S. government, documents being disclosed and people coming forward, this urban legends start to look more like fact. Also, that this is just too weird not to be true is why I had to make this story into a short film. It gave me characters, drama, comedy, and some aliens to top it off. What more do you want in a film?