Could it be true that George Washington was actually a German immigrant named “Georg Weisserman”? New research indicates that this is a distinct possibility.

A Virginia man claims to have found a 18th century diary in a German archive that proves just this. George, or Georg, as he was known in his hometown of Hannover, was an exceptionally skilled horseman who learned surveying from the Count of Anhalt. He disappears from the historical record in Hannover at just about the same time that Washington’s name is recorded in the early American sources about the future-president.

To learn more about this intriguing story that is bound to turn American history textbooks upside-down, I spoke to the American historian Scott Shubitz.

“I’m not saying that it is impossible,” said Shubitz. “But, I’d really want to see the evidence, and at this point, the theory just doesn’t sound that credible.”

But of course there is much about the past that we don’t know. For example, is it possible that Weisserman could learn to speak English without an accent? Why don’t any sources refer to George Washington’s German accent?

“I’m not aware of any sources that refer to George Washington having a German accent,” said Shubitz, “but then again, I’m not familiar with all of the sources on this. Besides, plenty of things were not recorded.”

As any American historian can attest, there were many Germans in the British colonies, and plenty who learned to speak English. Are there any sources that refer to any of these German immigrants in the colonies speaking with a German accent?

Again, Shubitz: “I am only aware of a few sources from the colonial period that mention German immigrants speaking with a German accent. Certainly, for most Germans in the colonies, there is no record of their speech patterns. For all we know, they could have been speaking Kling-on.”

A Kling-on-speaking, German-born Georg Weisserman as the first president of the United States? It sounds a bit far-fetched, but when we connect the dots, it becomes clear that this is a very real possibility.

I’m not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.