Robert Merritt and Douglas Caddy reveal Nixon's alleged 1972 confession of a White House time capsule containing UFO files, hidden after Watergate to protect secret extraterrestrial contact details. Merritt claims FBI agents threatened him regarding the Houston Plan, while Caddy argues releasing this evidence would vindicate Nixon by proving Watergate was a setup by John Dean and Alexander Haig to conceal knowledge of alien encounters, potentially linking the scandal to fears surrounding JFK's assassination and Soviet exposure. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Nixon's Secret UFO Time Capsule00:02:59
Hi, this is Dark Journalist bringing you a special update on the Nixon ET time capsule story.
Of course, we published our exclusive interview with former Houston Plan Nixon insider Robert Merritt, where he revealed for the first time his three meetings that took place deep beneath the White House with President Nixon.
He also revealed that in the third meeting, President Nixon had read him a letter in which he described the covert government's interaction with an ET being over two decades and the incredible knowledge they had obtained.
Former Watergate attorney Douglas Caddy has sent a letter to the National Archives with the offer from Merritt to reveal the location of the time capsule if it's read aloud and distributed to the public.
In this episode, we'll hear more from Merritt about his third meeting with Nixon and from Douglas Caddy, who will tell us the deep history that proves Merritt was there in the heart of the Nixon White House as part of the ultra secret covert operation, the Houston Plan.
More information is emerging that can lead us to the heart of this mystery.
Passages in two popular books tell us that Nixon may have got his idea for a time capsule.
From President Eisenhower.
This excerpt from The President and the Apprentice, Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952 1961, by Erwin F. Gelman reads The President made a handwritten list for Project X, possibly the time capsule located at his Gettysburg farm.
And this passage from Evan Thomas's Being Nixon In 1953, after his first few months in the White House, President Eisenhower wrote out a list for Project X, a secret recollection of his presidency.
To be deposited in a time capsule at his Gettysburg farm.
The first item was Nixon.
Nixon may have drawn direct inspiration from Eisenhower's plan.
When his efforts at UFO disclosure were destroyed by Watergate, the message to the American people was a way to preserve his legacy.
After all, according to multiple sources, Nixon headed the CIA's special version of Project Blue Book that dealt with real crash retrievals.
Unlike the public version, Nixon's extensive knowledge of the UFO file since the 1950s.
Led him to spearhead an effort to produce a documentary that recounted the landing of advanced beings at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
Vast resources were put at Director Bob Emmenager's disposal from the Department of Defense under Nixon's orders.
When the Watergate scandal broke, the administration backed off.
When the documentary finally aired after Nixon left office, no footage of the Holloman Air Force Base incident was included.
Nixon's hope of being the disclosure president faded away.
But in the White House, in that third meeting in 1972, after Watergate broke, He had told Merritt he'd hidden the time capsule with the message of what we had obtained under his direction, with the Los Alamos scientists communicating with an advanced off world being.
Today we're going to go deep into Nixon's UFO disclosure.
Also, I'll announce here that I'll be going on Coast to Coast AM this Thursday night with Linda Moulton Howe to talk about the major implications of Merritt's Nixon revelations about the ET time capsule.
Howard Hunt's Dangerous Break00:08:29
Hang on, we're just starting to take off with Robert Merritt's story that changes history forever.
Doug, thank you for joining us again.
Of course, as Robert Merritt's stunning revelations are more and more public, people are curious about his amazing life, and we have the exclusive interview with him that we put out on February 14th here at Dark Journalist.
But I can think of no one better to give us an idea of Merritt's unusual life than you.
So I guess my first question is how did you first hear of Robert Merritt?
He entered my life because after Watergate broke on June 17th, 1972, When Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy retained me to represent themselves and also the five arrested burglars, this was in the early morning hours after the break in on June 17, 1972.
About a week later, Washington Police and FBI came to see Robert Merritt and asked him to establish or get to know me somehow.
And that was his task to do so.
He didn't think he could do that.
And he never did do that because I was very wary at that point of any strangers coming up or anything like that.
I didn't want to be caught in a situation of any type.
And so we never did meet.
But his roommate at that time was a police officer, Carl Schoffler, a detective.
And he had told Carl Schoffler, his roommate, about the Watergate break in two weeks before it occurred.
He knew this because a friend of his.
Rita Reed was her name, James Reed was her full name.
She was actually a drag queen, and her job was in an apartment complex near the Watergate, it was to operate the switchboard.
And a call came in there and for a plug in the switchboard that had never been used, and they insisted it be connected.
And so she was intrigued at what this was all about.
She listened in.
This was two weeks before the actual break in, and it were these two voices, one outside and one inside the building, discussing the planned break in.
And how it would be the downfall of Richard Nixon.
He was being set up, so to speak.
And so Rita Reed the next day contacted her close friend Robert Merritt and explained this to him and said, This is what she heard on this phone call.
And he, in turn, the very next day, told Carl Schaffler about it.
Carl Schaffler was actually a military intelligence agent who had been assigned to the Washington, D.C. police.
He had gone through the Mint station.
Place in Virginia, which is run by the NSA, which trains people on surveillance and wiretapping and so forth.
And Robert Merritt claimed that in the same class that he was in was also Bob Woodbird, who also was a military physician.
And both went through this very intensive course under aliases.
That's one of the disclosures he makes in my new autobiography.
But in any event, they proposed that he get to know me, and later on they came back, the same group came back, and they wanted me to be killed.
If you were to read the affidavit that Robert Merritt executed, that's inside my book.
And the reason they did was they thought I knew too much.
They knew that I had been very good friends with Howard Hunt.
And so these people, the FBI and military intelligence and the Washington, D.C. police, were afraid that Howard Hunt, because we were very close friends, had told me too much.
We were close friends because we both knew William F. Buckley.
Was the godfather of Howard Hunt's children.
And I'd worked with Buckley while I was at Georgetown University.
I'd actually written an article for National Review.
And with Buckley's assistance, I had formed Young Americans for Freedom in 1960, which was a national youth organization that really was the birth of the conservative movement.
Right.
And that's an amazing piece of history there.
Now, going back to Merritt, how did you become a target of this covert group that he was working with?
The FBI agents that came to see Robert Merritt and Carl Schaffer, and there were other agents too.
According to what Merritt said in his affidavit, they believed I knew too much.
And the reason they believed I knew too much was I was so close to Howard Hunt.
Right.
Not only did I represent Howard Hunt in Watergate, which was an unfolding scandal, but as you know, as later on, the world came to realize or find out that Howard Hunt was a key figure in the Kennedy assassination, which had occurred nine years previously.
Nobody knew that at the time that the Watergate burglars, most of them, and Howard Hunt were.
We were also involved in the Kennedy assassination.
And so I think the last thing the intelligence community wanted was for these two events to be linked.
And they were afraid that I knew this, but I did not know this.
I knew a great deal, but I did not know this.
But they did not know what I knew and what I didn't know.
So Robert Maris executed affidavits to the effect they wanted to do me in, basically.
And what saved me was I was served with a subpoena to appear before the Watergate grand jury on June 28th.
Which was 11 days after the Watergate case broke.
I was served with a subpoena to appear forthwith.
The assistant U.S. attorney grabbed me by my arm in the courthouse and pulled me right into the grand jury room.
And I became a controversial character, so to speak, in the first six weeks of the case.
And for that reason, this group backed off because anything happening to me at that time would have been just a bit too much, basically, put it that way.
So you had too much light on you, and they backed off, essentially, which meant you were no longer their target.
But the illegal, unconstitutional acts that these intel groups were employing and using Robert Merritt for came under the umbrella of the shadowy Houston Plan.
Now, can you give us an idea here of what the Houston Plan was?
It's still a very controversial thing.
I'll explain how John Dean was actually the administrator of the Houston Plan.
Well, let's go back to the beginning.
The Houston Plan was actually developed by Richard Nixon along with Tom Houston, who was on the staff of the White House.
And I knew Tom Houston.
Back in 1960, because he was one of the founders of Young American Freedom.
Right.
So we go way back.
And actually, when he was in the White House at one time, I visited him and he escorted me throughout the White House, gave me a tour of the White House.
And we went into Pat Buchanan.
Pat Buchanan was Nixon's speechwriter.
He introduced me to Pat Buchanan.
What I remember about that is Pat Buchanan's office had nothing but TV monitors in it, but playing constantly.
He was monitoring the news everywhere, you know, all around the world.
Wow.
That was his job, you know, but I do remember that.
But so, but.
Tom Houston became, for some reason, I've never quite understood it, somewhat controversial, and so he was sort of eased out.
And John Dean, who was the White House counsel, came on board about the same time, and he assumed administration of the Houston Plan.
And the Houston Plan, as I understand it, had many components.
And Watergate exposed, Robert describes these incredible criminal and semi criminal activities that he carried out, which were all part of the Houston Plan.
Now, part of Merritt's newer revelations about the Houston Plan.
Are about these strange overnight court hearings with surveillance being approved in these underground legal chambers.
Can you tell us about that?
Underground Court Hearings Exposed00:02:59
1971 and 72, he appeared before a secret court at which was presided by three federal judges.
This was a secret court in a secret location in Washington, D.C.
It was on Peace Street Northwest, about three blocks west of Brockley Park, which is about four blocks west of where both Robert and I lived.
It was in an apartment building, and the court convened at 1 a.m.
Not every day, but when it had to, at 1 a.m.
And what would happen was the FBI agents would pick up Robert Merritt, they'd drive the four blocks to the apartment building, they would drive in through the garage entrance and park their vehicle.
And there was an elevator that only held three people.
I mean, go down and come back up, only three people, and go down about three levels beneath the apartment complex, the building, open to a corridor.
And at the end of the corridor, there was a locked door that had three locks on it, and it required three separate keys to open it.
Inside, there were two more doors which did not have locks on it.
And inside that was a courtroom, an actual small little courtroom which had two or three benches.
It had the place where the judges presided, sitting above the rest of the court.
It had American flags.
It had Engard Our Trust on the wall and so forth.
And Merritt's job was the FBI agents, after they got him there, handed him an affidavit and said, Read this because you're going to say that you're going to testify this is to your knowledge.
And you're going to sign and execute this before the judges.
So you've got to know what you're going to talk about.
So read this.
And he has an excellent memory.
His IQ is about 138.
Very high.
Good IQ.
Even though he's just a high school graduate.
So the next step would be they would take him in.
And it was a very serious operation.
In other words, there were no jokes.
It was very.
The decorum of the court was like a real court.
It was a real court.
The judges were federal judges.
They wore black suits instead of robes.
Okay.
And Robert Merritt would recite from the best of his memory the contents of the affidavit, you know, whatever it might be.
And then he would hand the document to the judges.
They would peruse it, read it over, and hand it back to him, and he would sign it.
And these were documents for warrants for wiretapping or searches of premises or offices or surveillance and so forth.
And this was all conducted very secretly.
In other words, nobody knew.
And the two things he, the two targets he does remember, Out of the 12 or 14, one was Arnold Porter.
They issued a warrant to wiretap Arnold Porter, which is a major law firm in Washington, D.C.
This is 1971 and 72 area.
And the other one's the Institute of Policy Studies, which was a very, very, very liberal organization in Washington.
Well, it sounds like Merritt was quite an asset as an informant.
The 1971 Wiretap Targets00:14:55
Now, do you think that this is why he got the attention of President Nixon?
President Nixon called him a super plumber.
Because he had the plumbers' unit in the White House, which was supposed to find the leaks, and that was Hunt and the others, you know.
But President Nixon said, You're better than any FBI agent I know.
You're better than the plumbers.
Yeah.
Because you don't follow orders, but you get the goal.
You achieve the objective your own way, and it's all actually better than the directions that you were given.
So that's why Nixon summoned him.
Amazing.
Let's go here to my interview with Merritt, where he describes Nixon hiding an ET time capsule in the White House.
And how he expected that someday it would be revealed.
Now, Robert, I understand from our conversations that my next question touches on some very important and totally unknown information.
But you've said that as President Nixon was reading you the letter, there's a point where he stops and tells you that he has a copy of this letter hidden somewhere in the White House, and no one will find it until the time is right.
That's correct.
A kind of time capsule with this powerful information inside.
Now, can you tell me about that?
You know, he did put something away in the White House.
I'm not going to say where it is, but it's there.
Okay, well, let me ask you just a little more about this, and I appreciate you opening up as best you can.
Sure.
My question is do you think that the message is still there?
Yes, I do.
I do.
Yeah.
Nixon was just clever enough to know where to stash it, where it could remain undisturbed.
Yes, yes.
And he also said that in time, in time, he emphasized that word three times like he always did.
Street was his favorite thing.
He said it would be discovered.
Hmm.
Well, what is so intriguing for me is that we have the mystery of Nixon reading you this letter about the ET presence, and then he goes further and tells you about saving it as a time capsule of sorts.
It's almost as if, in getting all of these reports about your talent for memorizing things like license plates and addresses in all these assignments that he sent you on, that he felt in you.
He had a human recorder, a kind of personal time capsule for all this.
Well, maybe you're the key to that time capsule.
Maybe you're unlocking it.
Yes.
I hope.
If this broadcast or whatever you do to release this through your media means is to shed light on the president and to show that he was innocent, he was not guilty of these things, and so be it.
It concerns me about the fact even today.
That even though all this stuff happened is 100% true, how much would anybody believe Robert Merritt?
I mean, again, I would have to say I was just a hillbilly from the state of West Virginia, a Ridge Runner.
I mean, you know, this is what people are going to say.
You know, I was not on the White House staff, I wasn't connected, I had no diplomas, I was not an attorney, I was not anybody.
I was somebody he selected.
Why he selected me, well, only God knows, because I don't know the answer to that.
Do you feel like he wanted you to reveal what he told you about the alien at some point?
Yes, I do, but he didn't tell me when the time was right.
I said, well, can you be more pacific?
He said, you'll be in touch with.
And I said, Mr. President, I said, you know, I could die tomorrow.
And he said, well, he said, but Henry's still living.
And I assume that the only two people on the face of this earth that have that knowledge, other than those who actually work with these things out there in Mexico or Nevada, wherever they're kept at, would be Kissinger and myself.
And why me?
I don't know.
I just cannot answer it.
And it still remains a huge puzzle to me to this day.
And it upsets me very badly because of my ill health right now.
And I don't know where to go with this.
I think that's why I'm hurriedly trying to get this information with you, Daniel, because I don't know where to go with this.
Doug, we both heard the amazing revelations of Robert Merritt about his three meetings with President Nixon at the White House and the time capsule that he left there with information that reveals the UFO file.
Now, you know politics and you've studied President Nixon.
What do you think he was doing secreting away this special message?
He was putting his house in order, okay?
He was making moves right then because he didn't know what the future held.
He didn't know how soon this might drag out for two years or might end in a month in terms of what.
What would happen to him?
Right.
And so he wanted to get this, he wanted to do things.
He wanted to get this letter to Henry Kissinger, and he could not trust anybody in the White House.
Let's say he wanted to use Rosemary Woods as secretary.
Well, if she would walk down the street and drop something in a mailbox, you could imagine someone would go in there and see her do that, and they would go and find out what she dropped in.
There was no one he could trust in the White House, and he was surrounded by his enemies.
He realized at that time, he realized that General Haig.
Was really the one who was really the one engineering his demise, as was John Dean, as were a number of other people.
But the way I see it is that he realized this, but he said, if I remove these people, if I fire them or kick them out, then they'll be over enemies.
They'll be public over enemies.
They'll cause me much more damage on the outside than if I kick them on the inside.
And this is what President Trump is learning right now.
Right, right.
Well, we see that with Steve Bannon for sure.
Well, Merritt revealing the three meetings at the White House and the time capsule is something that he had never done before.
So I find the timing just remarkable and the things that are driving him to do this just very powerful.
And two, he said, Who could he talk to this about?
He said, I walk around every day for all these years having this incredible secret of this whole thing, and who could I talk to about it?
When you think about it, remember Nixon said, Don't let that envelope fall in the hands of the FBI under any circumstances.
He couldn't tell the FBI.
He couldn't tell anyone.
Who would he tell?
He couldn't tell a priest.
He couldn't tell anyone.
Well, I have no doubt after speaking with him that his health really was a major factor and maybe a real sense of duty to Nixon himself.
That was his decision.
And he wants it out now.
Doug, when we process the information from Merritt, we're coming face to face again with the UFO file as the unseen force in these historic events.
We can see that struggle on a presidential level between the covert and the overt public state since 1963.
The reason Kennedy was assassinated was the great fear that he was going to give away the store.
He would be dealing with the Soviets, with Khrushchev and the Soviets, but he would give away too much.
It would be almost a one way street instead of.
He wanted to share the UFO file with them.
Yeah.
And maybe go beyond that, you know, and give away information that.
That those who are behind, who the super deep state felt would endanger our country, okay?
So, and so this was not lost on Nixon, obviously.
I mean, he realized there are people who believe Nixon had to go because he opened the door to China, which was viewed as a grave mistake by a lot of people, and maybe in retrospect it was.
But maybe he did that because he needed them on board in dealing with the alien presence.
He could not deal with the alien presence.
With the great country of China, with the leadership that they had at that time, they needed a change there.
Of course, in addition to opening China, he created this process of the SALT talks, the strategic arms limitation talks, which worked with the Soviets, where we reduced our nuclear arsenals, and it was historic.
But I think maybe behind all this, Nixon's whole foreign policy was not a foreign policy about things going on planet Earth.
It was planet Earth versus the universe and those out there.
That's who he was focused on in terms of real foreign policy.
And only he and Kissinger knew this.
Right, exactly.
Now, Doug, we both applaud the courage of Robert Merritt coming forward with this incredible experience that he had and the information about Nixon's ET time capsule.
But I should point out here that you're not exactly taking a low profile on this.
By sending the letter to the National Archives on behalf of Merritt with the offer to give them directions to the time capsule, you've stepped right into the center of a major story.
Why are you coming forward to help get?
Merritt's story out.
Our joint answer on this is we're doing it for history.
We actually do not care whether someone believes it or not.
We're doing it because it has to be told.
It's for history.
And if you don't believe it, that's up to you.
We're laying it out there.
Merritt knows his time is limited.
I'll be 80 in March.
I'll be 80 years old.
Myself, my time is less sand in the hourglass.
You're doing great.
And so it's for history.
And we're doing it for history.
And there we are.
And that's our answer.
It's up to you whether you believe us or not.
You know, we're just laying it out there and it's there for the taking.
Now, if the document is fine in the White House, that will certainly substantiate much of what Merritt is saying, you know.
Absolutely.
I agree.
I agree.
It's crucial.
Now, I've said already on the record that I found Merritt to be truthful and forthright in his statements concerning Nixon, the meetings, and the ET time capsule.
So that's my experience as a journalist talking there.
What do you want to tell people about Merritt, who he is, and his story?
There's no hesitation on my part in endorsing the credibility of Robert Merritt on the big picture and the big things.
There's none.
He's had an incredible life when you think about it, just an incredible life.
How do you feel about taking a role in this important action of UFO disclosure and revealing the mystery behind this wall of secrecy?
It's meant to be.
It's just meant to be, okay?
And the way I look at it, both of us are just carrying out the roles.
That's been given to us.
We're just vessels, is what we are.
Nothing more than vessels to bring forth this story.
That's the way I look at it.
That's remarkable.
And I agree that Merritt's revelations are history changing.
And I think it took a lot for him to come forward to shed some light in these dark areas of official secrecy.
He's a very knowledgeable person.
And we so rarely get to talk to genuine covert operators, it's truly rare.
And so it's a real privilege that he's on the record here with us.
Now, before we go, Doug, I know you're finally going to release your autobiography later this spring in April.
And I definitely want to have you back to talk just about that.
But can you give us some idea here about it?
Well, my book is called Being There, Eyewitness to History.
And I trace, it may sound presumptuous, but I have witnessed a number of historical events, and so I trace them.
Right.
And I try to present new and different information that you wouldn't find elsewhere.
That is valuable for people understanding, and it's done briefly.
I tried to make it where you can read this on an airplane.
It's not deep, something's deep in great detail or anything like that.
It gives you an insight to each of these events and how I view them.
Well, you've been in the center of so many historical events from Watergate, LBJ and Billy Celestis, the JFK assassination, and more.
It's incredible personal testimony.
And your efforts now bringing forward Merritt's revelations and keeping us all updated on the response from the National Archives on Merritt's offer regarding the Nixon ET time capsule just seems to bring all of your work together.
Well, hopefully, this will be a first person from you regarding that too.
Well, I plan to be there with you when it's opened and read aloud for sure.
Great, great, wonderful.
Now, my last question for you, Doug, is this Are we looking at, finally, some kind of vindication for President Richard Nixon?
Oh, I think so.
Absolutely.
I think so.
I think Watergate was a setup for him.
I mean, he knew something was going to take place, as did the other agencies involved in the Houston plan.
They knew they had to get this information about the prostitution ring and who.
But he never dreamed, he never knew it was.
His own people.
I mean, this was an Alexander Haig John Dean operation that kept Nixon ignorant out of it.
Ignorant out of it, you know.
And so he was, in a sense, he was, it's sort of, you know, he had knowledge, but he didn't really have knowledge, you know.
It's sort of a strange situation there.
Yes.
Yeah, oh yeah.
I think if the message to the American people information comes forward from the time capsule, history will look at him very differently.
Well, it would depend on.
I agree with that, but I think the actual contents of the letter, you know, he used to write his own speeches.
I had a friend of mine, Carol Dawson.
We were, when I was at Georgetown, she was at another Catholic school, okay, girl school.
And she had a part time job working in Nixon's office when he was vice president.
And he would write out his speeches and slide them under the door, and she would go and get them and type them up in final form.
And so he wrote his own stuff.
Recovering History's Hidden Message00:01:29
Right.
You know, he wrote his own stuff.
And so.
I think his final letter is a masterpiece.
I think he put a lot of time and thought into this, and it must be incredible what's in there.
I mean, it will dazzle our minds, I think, what he has left behind for us.
Dazzle our minds.
I hope we're able to recover it.
I do too.
Amazing.
Doug, as usual, remarkable information and work.
Thank you so much for being here.
Well, thank you, Daniel.
You know, what you are doing is incredible and valuable work, too, not only for.
Not only for America, but for the whole world.
And I'm among those who treasure what you're doing.
And I want the world to know that we look upon you as what you're providing information we can't get elsewhere.
And we're most thankful and appreciative of what you're doing, Daniel.
Keep up the good work.
Keep up the good work.
I really appreciate that.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining me, everyone.
We have a mega broadcast coming up tonight, March 1st, 8 p.m., with a live stream here on YouTube.
Go to darkjournalist.com for more info and sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss any of the important shows we have coming up for you.
Now, I'll also be on Coast to Coast AM tonight with Linda Moulton Howe to talk about Robert Merritt's incredible revelations and Nixon's ET time capsule.