Who Really Covered Up These Presidential Mysteries?

As you already know, history isn’t neat and tidy. For every well-documented achievement or official record, there are countless whispers of something darker, something surprising, and never fully explained.

If you think about it for a second, you’ll realize that thousands of moments in American history have felt too weird, too sudden, or even too perfectly timed. Usually, when something serious happens, such as the death of a president, crucial documents tend to disappear without a trace.

While Hollywood loves to dramatize these scenarios, the real-life cases are usually more unsettling than fiction. Even though presidents are supposed to represent transparency, what happens behind closed doors doesn’t match the public image.

Why do these mysteries matter today? Well, some of them can make us laugh, while others can help us understand how much we still don’t know about the very people we trust to lead our nation. Are you curious for more? Read on.

7 Dark Secrets from the Presidential Past

1. James Buchanan – The Only President Who Never Married

This is one of the mysteries that will likely never be solved, considering that nearly two centuries have passed since Buchanan’s death. The president was never married, so his marital status raised some concerns.

When people don’t really understand a subject, they prefer to rely on a rumor that sounds the most accurate. People still believe the president was gay because there was some compelling evidence. For example, he installed his own niece as his ”First Lady” while in office. Isn’t that strange? Another evidence is that the president had a longtime roommate, who was also a man.

Last but not least, and probably the biggest sign that Buchanan knew how to keep secrets, was that when he was sworn into office in 1857, his orientation was never mentioned. And even though there was a huge possibility of finding some evidence about his private life, the president specifically requested that all his private letters and personal items be destroyed upon his death.

Considering that any remaining evidence was destroyed, nobody can prove any of the existing theories, meaning that this is a mystery that will never be solved.

2. The First Female President

Have you ever wondered who was running the United States from October 1919 to January 1920? Well, your answer might depend on which historian you talk to. Many history professionals truly believe that a woman led the country between those dates.

In October 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that kept him out of the political game for a long time. What was interesting was that just a few people knew about this little secret. The White House never made an official statement about the president’s health situation. So, while he was gone, his wife Edith Wilson was the one who took his place.

It’s true; nobody ever acknowledged Edith’s power and abilities to run the White House, that’s why it’s interesting how the show kept going on even without Woodrow Wilson.

We’ll never really know what happened at that time, but Edith Wilson might have been our first female president, even if the role went unrecognized. Isn’t that crazy?

3. Barack Obama’s vs Chester A. Arthur’s Citizenship

You surely heard all those rumors about Barack Obama’s citizenship, but it will most likely remain a mystery. Even though he was not the only president who faced these allegations, he was the one most likely to have been born outside the United States.

In the end, Barack Obama had the power to demonstrate his roots, and the allegations slowly but surely faded away. But wait a minute! There’s another president whose citizenship was never made clear. Researchers and historians believe that James A. Harfield was born in Canada.

Even though Arthur was asked multiple times to provide his birthplace, he never did. However, he claimed to his dying day that he was born in Vermont, and not Canada. The only problem is that there’s no proof, so all we can do is trust him, right?

4. Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal

This is probably one of the creepiest mysteries. It happened between February 1971 and July 1973, when Nixon secretly recorded nearly 4,000 hours of conversations with politicians, diplomats, and business leaders. Some of those recordings were heard, but there’s a specific one that still haunts Washington to this day.

After part of the recordings became public, journalists discovered that one was missing. It was a conversation between President Richard Nixon and his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman. What was interesting was that the found tape contained just some white noise. Considering that all the other tapes had something recorded, it was simply impossible for this tape to contain nothing. So, no one knows to this day what that conversation was all about and why the president didn’t want anyone to hear it. Interesting, right?

5. John F. Kennedy’s brain

As you might already know, there are countless unsolved mysteries surrounding the president’s assassination. One of the creepiest ones is the mystery related to JFK’s missing brain. Even though it doesn’t seem real, you read that right. The president’s autopsy was performed in Dallas, and the specialists were shocked to see that his brain was missing. The most interesting part is that no one has ever heard anything related to it later. So, it simply disappeared.

Who stole John F. Kennedy’s brain? There are countless angles to play here, and here we are, six decades later, still trying to figure out what happened.

6. The inauguration speech

Have you ever heard about William Henry Harrison’s inauguration speech? His case is worth our attention, but most importantly, it’s worth other presidents’ attention… You may be wondering why. Well, sometimes a too-long speech can end your career.

Here’s what happened: just 31 days after William Henry Harrison was inaugurated, he died of pneumonia. So, some serious sources are saying that’s not worth spending too much time on preparing your first speech as a president. Life happens, and you never know when your journey is going to end. Brutal!

Wait! Now comes the interesting part. Modern historians have blamed Harrison at that time for his meandering speech patterns. At the inauguration, America’s 9th president delivered a 2-hour speech, which is known as being the longest in history. People were forced to stay outside in freezing rain and show respect to their newly elected president. Some sources were saying at that time that the president felt ill immediately after the event. So, probably the cold rain is what really affected him.

7. Aliens

We couldn’t conclude this list in any other way. So, let’s talk about aliens. In July 1947, during Harry S. Truman’s presidency, an alleged alien landing occurred in Roswell, New Mexico. Many people believe Truman mishandled this supposed UFO incident.

Here’s what happened: it was announced that an alien spacecraft had crash-landed in the New Mexico desert, but the very next day, the government denied that the landing ever took place. Isn’t that incredible?

The whole situation remains a mystery because no one knows for certain if it was a mistake or simply a rushed cover-up. What we do know is that President Truman did his best to change the narrative and divert public attention as much as possible.

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Also, if you don’t know what to read next, here’s our recommendation: 7 Most Beloved US Presidents to Sit in the Oval Office