The Hungarian Crown and the Alien Conspiracy

Following the collapse of Nazi Germany, several of Hungary’s national treasures, including the Crown of St. Stephen, were handed over to the United States military for safekeeping. They were duly delivered, in the early 1950s, to Fort Knox in an elaborate operation code-named Klondike. The treasure was eventually returned to Hungary in 1978.

This would be just another story of political intrigue were it not for one strange fact: according to a memorandum in the State Department, the soldiers designated to guard the treasure were told that the boxes contained “the wings and engine of a flying saucer.”

This type of misinformation may well have been common. “Is it effective?” asked researcher William Moore. “Certainly in the Klondike situation it was, because unsubstantiated stories about parts of a flying saucer being stored at Fort Knox continue to be part of the UFO crash/retrieval rumor mill to this very day. How many other similar rumors have a similar origin is anybody’s guess.”