Friday, October 11, 2024

Flying Saucer Fun Gone Bad


The U.S. Air Force stated in 1949 that flying saucers “are not a joke.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 27, 1949

Donald Keyhoe became famous for saying, “The Flying Saucers Are Real.” But even when they’re not real, playing around with flying saucers can be dangerous. From our files, five documented examples from the forties and fifties, one of them fatal.

Dateline: Cottage Grove, Oregon, July 1947

As reported in our examination, Flying Saucers & the Regatta Queen Contest: Two Case Studies from 1947, the competition for the title of Cottage Grove Regatta Queen was fierce. Barbara Anderson took the lead in the race and her sponsors dropped tried to cement her win by dropping campaign advertising from a plane.  The ads were in the form of hundreds of silver discs with the message to vote for Barbara. Unfortunately, chasing one of the silver saucers led to the serious injury of a 12-year-old boy.

The Eugene Guard, July 19, 1947

Dateline: Near Lake Charles, Louisiana, July 1947

19-year-old ex-Marine John Blackburn was out with some other young friends when as a prank he sent a saucer flying across a nightclub dining room. The manager, James Monsur, didn’t find it funny, and he clubbed Blackburn over the head with a .38 pistol. Tragically, the gun accidently discharged on impact, killing the prankster. Monsur was found guilty of negligent homicide and sentenced to prison, however, he was pardoned after serving only 10 months. This incident is the first documented fatality related to the flying saucer topic.

El Paso Herald Post and Lubbock Morning Avalanche July 18, 1947

Pardon: The Town Talk (Alexandria LA) Dec. 27, 1948


Dateline: New Orleans, Louisiana, Feb. 1952

The injury was heartbreak, but professional dancer Evelyn West was hurt by a man who’d led her on romantically. Steven Vitko bilked her into giving him $5,000, supposedly to secure a government contract to build a flying saucer.

Vitko took the money and ran, resulting in what may have been The First UFO Lawsuit?

 

Dateline: Oregon, Illinois, Sept. 1952

On Sept. 29, 1952, Jay Zee's  "Hypnotic High-Jinks" act had him hypnotizing members of his audience to do funny things. He compelled a young man in the audience into seeing and reporting flying saucers, and Robert Cross was so agitated when he spoke to the police, they subdued him as a madman and gave him a beating.

Flying Saucers, Flying Fists and Hypnotic High-Jinks


Playing with Saucers

Perhaps the first flying saucer toy was manufactured in 1948, by Walter Frederick Morrison and his partner Warren Franscioni, who marketed a plastic throwing disc called the “Flyin-Saucer.” 


The same year, F. K. Formis invented and marketed the Atomic Jet Flying Saucer.   

Another “helicopter toy” with a metal propeller blade entered the market closer to 1950, the Mars Flying Saucer from Mars Novelty Company. 

We don’t know if one of these was the culprit, but a flying saucer toy was involved in our final incident.

 

Dateline: Syracuse, New York, Dec. 1953

While Christmas shipping in Woolworth’s department store, Mrs. Florence Cohen was struck in the head by a flying saucer. It was a toy being demonstrated by a store employee. Cohen filed a lawsuit against the company, $1000 for negligence. Ultimately, she was awarded $200 instead.

Sacramento Bee, March 12, 1954

The News Tribune, March 13, 1954


The moral? Take care out there. While most flying saucer antics do not result in pain and suffering, remember, there’s always some risk.

Topps' "Mars Attacks" trading card #12, 1962

 


Thursday, September 12, 2024

Flying Saucers: The Small Sporty Models

 

Human beings have always been fascinated with flight, but in 1947, flying saucers gave us something new to think about. UFOs have inspired us to imagine and invent.

Who was the first inventor to attempt to build and fly their own saucer? The Weekly Town Talk, July 19, 1947, featured a photo of Jimmy Webb of Little Rock, Arkansas, and the homemade “Flying Saucer,” he entered in a local model airplane competition.

In 1950, Charles Hoberg of Chicago built a small “jet-powered” saucer “after studying reports of the space ships.”

Sunday News, March 26, 1950

In Sept. 1950, a warning was issued that Detroit, the Plymouth Motor Corporation’s International Model Plane Contest would feature flying saucers, and that they might cause alarm and be reported to authorities by the public.

Mansfield Advertiser Sept. 6, 1950

Plymouth Press release

“Pilot your own Flying Saucer” was the title of an article in Boy’s Life Jan. 1953, that instructed readers how to construct an unpowered flying saucer out of balsa wood.


Boy’s Life Jan. 1953

Boy Scout Ray White built such a saucer and demonstrated it on television for NBC’s Today Show.

Boy’s Life Nov. 1953

The above are just a few examples of the early attempts to copy flying saucers on a small scale, but in the 1960s, a company set out to mass produce them.

 

Cox’s Sky Saucer

The Star-News, (Chula Vista, CA) June 23, 1966

“Would you believe saucer for $9.98? Better yet, would you BUY a flying saucer for $9.98?  That's the million-dollar question as far as C. R. Stuard is concerned… Stuard is the co-owner and marketer of the "X-1 Sky Saucer," a flying saucer toy invented recently by a Solar engineer, [currently in] a test-market] in the Chula Vista Penney store. …

“Idea for the toy came from [Leonard] Mueller’s invention of a flying saucer-type crop duster. | “But it would have cost us $250,000 to produce our first duster,” says Stuard, “so we put our heads together and decided to come out with a model of the crop duster and sell it as a toy ‘flying saucer. We attached a gasoline engine to the saucer… and our model and it took off and flew…’

Does Stuard believe in real-life flying saucers? Like from Mars? “Yes, frankly, I do,” he says. “I have a very good friend who says he saw one. I believe him. He’s not the sort of person who’d make something like this up. Also, too many of the saucer sightings are unexplained. You know, expert scientists have told us that the obvious ‘best design’ for space vehicles of the future is the saucer. It’s shaped perfectly for space travel. If this is true, then maybe it figures that men from other planets would use saucers to investigate things on and about earth.”

 

The saucer’s package stated:

"Your X-1 sky saucer is practically indestructible and made of rugged polyethylene plastic to withstand the shock of Earth reentry...it can take it and fly again immediately!"

“Our X-1 Sky Saucer is powered by world famous special 18,000 RPM Cox .049 engine. Over 16" in diameter. Reaches heights of 300 feet & more.”


The X-1 was marketed in the 1970s as the “Star Cruiser UFO,” but a version was still on sale into the 1990s, and a similar “Nomad” saucer was produced in 1998.

 

Back to the Garage

Mass produced copies like the Cox Sky Saucer have their place, but there’s nothing like the efforts of the early saucer inventors. They took inspiration from flying saucers, thought for themselves, and got to work. Ufology might benefit from getting back to basics, and that’s a good model to follow.

Thursday, August 8, 2024

Ray Bradbury and George Adamski: Worlds Apart

In 1952, an imaginative author ran into a flying saucer lecturer at a science fiction convention. In a different time and place, perhaps they could have been the best of friends. here's what happened instead.

The Man for Mars


Ray Bradbury grew up reading about spacemen like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, loving fantasy and science fiction. In 1937 at the age of 17 he met Forrest J. Ackerman, joined a club and became involved in fandom writing for (and publishing) fanzines until making his first professional sale in 1941. By the late 1940s, he was a family man and an established author. A snapshot of Bradbury’s career highlights from Current Biography Yearbook, 1953:

“He has had 170 short stories published and twenty-three radio dramas and five television plays produced…with imaginative themes which combine advanced technology with subtle fantasy and have what has become known as ‘the Bradbury twist.’ His stories were first published in science fiction and fantasy magazines… [then the mainstream] Collier's, Saturday Evening Post and the New Yorker. … His most recent work, The Golden Apples of the Sun, is the fourth of his published books, the others being Dark Carnival (1947), The Martian Chronicles (1950) and The Illustrated Man (1951). … He has also done much writing for the moving pictures… Of Bradbury's prolific output Punch (August 1952) has written: ‘"It is hard to speak with restraint of these extraordinary tales which raise Ray Bradbury to a secure place among the imaginative writers of today.’"

 

A Friendship with a Flying Saucer Author

In the summer of 1950, Ray Douglas Bradbury (1920-2012) was thirty years old. That was when he met Gerald Heard (1889-1971), a science fiction author twice his age, who was interested in the paranormal, UFOs, and many other unconventional subjects. In the 2011 book, Becoming Ray Bradbury, Jonathan R. Eller described how they became good friends:

“In spite of Heard’s growing eccentricities… he offered Bradbury more than his passion for Eastern philosophies. Bradbury was not drawn to Heard’s beliefs, but he was drawn to his [talent, intellect, and personality].”

From the slightly re-titled US edition.

Heard’s book The Riddle of the Flying Saucers: Is Another World Watching? was published in the UK later that year.  In 1951, Heard was a founding member of the group Civilian Saucer Investigation of Los Angeles (CSI), the first UFO organization with a board of scientific and aeronautical experts. Riddle also lectured on saucers and revised his book for the 1953 Bantam paperback edition, adding two new chapters on recent sightings. This all goes to show that Bradbury had a trusted friend who was knowledgeable on the UFO topic, but Ray had no desire to be any part of it.

However, in the Imagination April 1951 science fiction magazine, Bradbury’s "In This Sign..." appeared, a UFO story of sorts about anomalous aerial spheres of blue light, later revealed to be sentient beings. The story was later retitled "The Fire Balloons." For a closer look at this from a historical UFO perspective, see: Ray Bradbury's Orbs from Mars at Blue Blurry Lines

 

The Man for Venus

In 1952, two rising stars crossed paths, a young science fiction author and an aging flying saucer lecturer. Although they had much in common, the two were sharply divided about their opinions on the reality of alien visitors. It happened at the fifth annual West Coast Science Fantasy Conference, which was held June 28-29, 1952, at the U.S. Grant Hotel in San Diego.

Ad from Science Fiction Advertiser, July 1952

"Sou-Westercon" was a major convention sponsored by the San Diego Science-Fantasy Society. Their guest of honor was author Ray Bradbury. It was considered a curiosity or quirk, but Bradbury chose not to drive a car or fly on an airplane. That’s why he travelled from his home in Venice, California, to the San Diego convention by train.

Anthony More’s report on the convention in Shangri-LA (newsletter of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society) #32, Fall 1952, said Sou-Westercon was, “the largest fan group ever assembled, and included the largest professional collection ever brought together at one time at a fan affair.” He noted that Ray Bradbury was supposed to give the opening remarks, but didn’t arrive on time (possibly his train was delayed). The convention started without him, the first of their schedule problems.

The 4-page program for Sou-Westercon was chiefly their directory of the events, but there was also a page featuring an ad for the booklet “Ray Bradbury Review.” Another unconnected ad below it was for “Cosmag S-F Digest,” which included an illustration of two flying saucers zipping through space.

Most of the speakers covered topics related to science fiction, but one talk was a bit different. The lecture for Saturday at 1:30 pm was “a discussion of The Flying Saucers” given by “Dr. Adamski.” 

FATE Magazine, July, 1951.

That was George Adamski (1891-1965), before his greatest claim to fame and bestselling book. (See: The Professor's Message from Space.) At that time, Adamski was an obscure figure, lecturing on flying saucer and selling the photographs he claimed to have taken of them. The convention report wryly mentioned Adamski’s presentation in passing:

“The ubiquitous flying saucer then wheeled into view, and a scattering of fans listened to a ‘Dr.' Adamski, who competes from the foot of the hill with Palomar Observatory, tell about that unusual form of iron known as carbon.”

It’s not documented how long it lasted or exactly what he talked about, but the lecture was scheduled to last 30 minutes. In other appearances around the same time, Adamski spoke about saucers as coming from our neighboring inhabited planets and displayed (and sold) his photos. Adamski sometimes talked two hours longer than planned, so he’d likely have run past his half-hour given the chance.

Ray Bradbury arrived from the train station while Adamski was lecturing, and on the way into the hotel he encountered some people who’d walked out on the talk. (We’ll hear his recollection of that later.) We don’t know how much of the lecture Bradbury saw or if he spoke to Adamski, but he was left with an unfavorable impression. After the convention, both Adamski and Bradbury both went on to greater successes, and both were the subject of much media coverage. As far as we know, they never crossed paths again.

 

It Came from Outer Space

Universal-International hired Ray Bradbury to come up with the story for a 1953 science fiction movie to be filmed in 3-D. One of their working titles was “The Atomic Monster,” but Bradbury resisted the idea of writing about monstrous flying saucer invaders from outer space. 


The 1953 United Press interview promoting It Came from Outer Space mentioned that the author was opposed to riding in a plane, then discussed his taste in films.

“Bradbury also is anti those science fiction movies in which the visitors in the flying saucers are usually villains. He approves of ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still,’ which featured a robot who was a hero. But in ‘The Thing,’ he complained, the man from another world started out believable but wound up as a monster.” Giving away the plot, in his film, an alien who landed here would just seek “to get away safely before somebody got panicky and killed him.”


Instead of space invaders, Bradbury’s aliens were not hostile, just visually repugnant to humans.. Their motive was only to repair their damaged ship and resume their voyage. Still, the studio sold the movie as being about a spaceship that “carried terrifying beings from outer space [who] planned to conquer the world…”

Trailer: It Came from Outer Space

Meanwhile, George Adamski had also been busy. It's possible that when the skeptical audience bailed on his 1952 convention lecture, he decided that talk and photographs were not enough. On November 20, 1952, Adamski claimed to have encountered a flying saucer and spoke to a man from Venus, and it was backed by photos, physical evidence, and multiple witnesses. The fantastic story gained traction in the press, and became the subject of a best-selling 1953 book, Flying Saucers Have Landed (coauthored with Desmond Leslie).


The Los Angeles Daily News, Oct. 19, 1953, carried two side by side ads featuring authors Bradbury and Adamski.


The 1960s

The UFO controversy had a resurgence in the 1960s, but Bradbury seems to have avoided taking part in public conversation on the topic. Bradbury wrote an article for his friend Forrest J. Ackerman in the Warren magazine Spacemen # 8, June 1964, discussing his favorite science fiction films, among them: “The Day the Earth Stood Still strikes me as a fine attempt to speak to mankind today about its problems on Earth.” Bradbury didn’t mind flying saucers as fiction, he was more concerned with a good story.

In 1967, the paperback collection, Man Faces Extra-Terrestrial Life In Contact edited by Noel Keyes listed Bradbury’s name first and reprinted his 1951, story, "The Fire Balloons."

Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1963. Contact, 1967.

George Adamski went on to write two more books about his series of interplanetary adventures. Despite being exposed as a fraud, he still had devoted followers when he died in 1965 at the age of 74.


1970s: Close Encounters

Bradbury was quoted in “’Saucer Cults’ Reread Bible in Light of UFOs” by Russell Chandler in the Los Angeles Times, Sept. 8, 1974:

“Religion and science are always circling each other,” he said. “It's like flesh and skin. There is a continuum between the two… The deep gap between them is just talk. But Bradbury, who believes “humanoid creatures like us” could exist on other planets, added that both science and religion “deal in ignorances,” and that theory is, in fact, faith. “We need to hang loose on this,’ he concluded. ‘There is always the danger of a new quack religion forming, but we need to allow this to proliferate in a free society.”

The 1976 reprint of Ralph and Judy Blum’s 1974 Bantam paperback book, “Beyond Earth: Man’s Contact with UFOs,” carried a cover blurb from Ray Bradbury stating: “We have needed a new, comprehensive UFO survey for many years now. … This is that book.”

Bradbury didn’t care for flying saucers, but he was deeply moved by Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. His loving review, “Opening the Beautiful Door of True Immortality,” was published in The Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1977 (Reprinted in the UK magazine Starburst, March 1978). He had nothing to say about the UFO lore in the film, just focused on what he felt was the true message:

“The great truth it teaches is that human beings, no matter what their shape, size, color, or far star-country of origin, are on their way to Becoming, Deciding to Be, deciding to travel in order to stay, deciding to live rather than dooming themselves to graveyard pits on separate worlds.”


Interviewed for the Jan. 12, Merv Griffin show, Bradbury talked about his love of Close Encounters: “I've seen it twice and cried both times…it's a very emotional experience, a very beautiful one...it's probably the most important film of the last 20 years.”

When Bradbury was a guest on the Tonight Show on March 1, 1978, host Johnny Carson asked him about UFOs and alien contact:

“The fascination lately of course with... Star Wars, Close Encounters… where people become involved again in reported flying saucers, what's your personal observation?"

Bradbury evaded the question, saying, “I'm very open. I think we you have to keep your mind totally open…” He later hinted at his true position by saying we had begun exploring space and “that we're going to be the Martians from here on in...” Carson persisted, “Do you feel personally that we are being observed? A lot of people believe that… if that's so, why don’t [aliens] contact us?” Bradbury mentioned the possible bacterial or cultural concerns, then gave his real answer. 

“I don't really think they're that close to us at this point, but I think that we'll make the contact… We can't travel fast enough right now… it will be possible, let's say 200 years from now, to make it to Alpha Centauri at almost the speed of light.”


1980s: A Saucer from a Martian Hoaxer

To promote the 1983 movie adaptation of Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, a version was produced for radio. It was narrated by Orson Welles, notorious for The War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938. Bradbury was unhappy with the script changes, but rewarded afterwards with a nice memento when Welles, “handed Bradbury the reading script with a hand-drawn flying saucer inscribed, ‘For Ray from his admiring friend, Orson.’” From Bradbury Beyond Apollo by Jonathan R. Eller, 2020

 

The Turn of the Century

The debate about aliens and UFOs got a boost in 1996 when scientists reported possible evidence of cellular life in an ancient meteorite thought to originate on Mars. The Los Angeles Times, Aug. 8, 1996, article stated there was a prominent non-believer:

“It’s ridiculous,” said author Ray Bradbury, whose Martian Chronicles painted a far more vibrant picture of Martian life. “They don’t have any proof. They’re not even sure [the rock] came from Mars. It’s a theory.” Bradbury compared the announcement to claims about UFOs and mysterious crop circles. He doesn’t believe it for a minute. “It’s stupid,” he said.

Ray Bradbury suffered a stroke in 1999 that left him with many physical problems. While his memory was dimmed by age and illness, he was still sharp and continued to work. During his final years, Bradbury spoke about UFOS and aliens several more times. Jim Cherry interviewed Bradbury for Arizona Republic August 31, 2000 (reprinted in Conversations with Ray Bradbury, Steven L. Aggelis, editor, 2004).

Cherry: “What do you think of alien visitors and UFOs?”

Bradbury: “No such, no way. It's ridiculous; there's absolutely no proof anywhere, at any time.”

Ray Bradbury wrote the foreword for the 2001 book, The Complete War of the Worlds: Mars' Invasion of Earth from H.G. Wells to Orson Welles. Entitled, “H.G. Wells, Master of Paranoia,” and it included a passage to the UFO topic:

“Wells and Welles prepared us for the delusional madness of the past fifty years. In fact, the entire history of the United States and the last half of the twentieth century is exemplified beautifully in Well's work. Starting with the so-called arrival of flying saucers in the 1950s, we've had a continuation of a mild panic at being invaded by creatures from some other part of the universe. It started with that alien professor who sold hot dogs with saucers of Invaders at the foot of Mt. Palomar. It then ravened up the years with half-baked sightings to end in Roswell and while true believers who claimed they never met a bug-eyed monster they didn't love.

Dr. Hynek disagreed, and he was the expert on flying saucers hitting the fan, having started the Center for UFO Studies. People said yes to his truths but snuck off the next day to Bide-a-Wee Martian Shoals in California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

The myths proliferated, all the way from the friendly beasts that invaded Meteor Crater in my It Came from Outer Space to the incredible mothership landing in firework illuminations in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. God reaching down to judge Adam's upstretched hand.

So the invasions will never cease. Or, not until we landfall Mars, build towns, and become friendly invaders to the universe. We will arrive in peace, and hopefully go with God.”

Ray Bradbury only mentioned Roswell in passing, but he recognized the story as something that had been manufactured by UFO mythmakers. In 2003, Bradbury had a heated exchange with Paul Davids, the producer of the 1994 Roswell TV movie. Bradbury was “an arch skeptic,” according to Davids, who said the disagreement happened at a Hollywood luncheon: 

“When he heard that I had made Roswell he started yelling at me! He started attacking me! Saying ‘what are you doing making a piece of fiction like that and trying to pass it off as something that’s true?’”

The last documented comments by Ray Bradbury on UFOs take us full circle. In 2009, Jeff Krulik filmed an interview of Bradbury, whom he found “still gracious and full of life and big ideas.” Almost as an afterthought, Krulik asked him, “Do you believe in UFOs?” In a hyperbolic reply, Bradbury said that George Adamski “invented” UFOs, blaming him for the popularity of the belief in them as alien spaceships. Bradbury described arriving at the 1952 Sou-Westercon:

“I went down [by] train to go to the science fiction convention in San Diego… in the U.S. Grant Hotel… people were rushing out… ‘We're leaving… [a] man that has a hot dog stand at the base of Mount Palomar, he's talking about some flying saucers… He's a nut, stupid nut.’ So I found out that... it was a complete lie that he made up… and people believed him. I talked on various radio shows and TV shows and told people not to listen… they asked me about that, I said, ‘Go talk to that hot dog salesman, it's a complete lie.’”

Ray Bradbury died on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91. The Los Angeles Times obituary for Bradbury quoted his view on his writing:

“I’m not a science fiction writer. I’ve written only one book of science fiction [Fahrenheit 451]. All the others are fantasy. Fantasies are things that can’t happen, and science fiction is about things that can happen.”

Bradbury viewed flying saucers from outer space not as science fiction, but as fantasy.

. . .

 

This article is an offshoot of a project that began years ago, “Science Fiction vs. Flying Saucers,” examining the opposition of many of the field’s authors to beliefs about UFOs. If you’re interested in seeing more on this topic, please let us know in an email or comment.

 

CE3K Trivia: George Adamski’s Revenge?

Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind presented a story based on a potpourri of events, concepts, and legends from UFO lore. Spielberg had scared moviegoers with Jaws, and all the advertising for CE3K was dark and menacing, telling us to “Watch the Skies,” and that “We are not Alone.” For most of the movie, the mystery of the UFOs is treated as menacing, but in the final act, the Mothership lands we learn that these ancient and technologically advanced aliens were peaceful and benevolent. Except in appearance, just like George Adamski’s space brothers.




Monday, July 8, 2024

The Professor's Message from Space

In 1952, UFO reports seemed to indicate an impending invasion by monstrous aliens:

June 1952: News of Oskar Linke’s 1950 sighting of a landed saucer with two occupants.
July 1952: Jets pursued UFOs invading the airspace over Washington, DC.
Aug. 19, 1952: A Florida Scoutmaster was attacked by a fiery blast from a saucer.
Sept. 12, 1952: People in West Virginia were menaced by the alien Flatwoods Monster
. 

As the year was winding down, there came a plot twist: 

Nov. 20, 1952: In the California desert, a flying saucer landed. A beautiful man from Venus emerged with a message of peace and brotherhood. 

Spiritualism, the Occult, Theosophy and other notions had been thriving in California since the late 19th century. An example bridging that scene to the UFO topic would be Guy Ballard of the “I AM’ movement, who claimed that at Mt. Shasta in 1932, he met twelve Ascended Masters from Venus. Another was Meade Layne of San Diego, a longtime student of paranormal topics, who in 1945 founded the Borderland Sciences Research Associates. Years before saucers, some of BSRA’s members already strongly believed in non-human intelligences from beyond our planet. Other Californians, whether in clubs, churches or cults, believed, too.  One believer was also a teacher. His students called him “Professor,” and he was the one in 1952 who made contact in the desert.

George Adamski

Long before space visitors became central to his teachings, George Adamski (1891-1965) was the charismatic leader teaching his own spin on Theosophy in a monastery in in Southern California in 1934. According to FBI records, his family moved Poland to the U.S. in 1893, he served from 1913-16 in the Army, then worked various manual labor jobs, until 1926 when he began lecturing on philosophy, within a few years he founded his own religion.

“Tibetan Monastery, First in America, to Shelter Cult Disciples in Laguna Beach” in the Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1934, reported on the formation of Adamski’s monastery and quoted him saying that he’d studied under masters in Tibet. "I learned great truths up there on the roof of the world... to cure the body and the mind and to win mastery over self and soul. I do not bring to Laguna the weird rites and bestial superstition… but the scientific portions of the religion.” Members of his Royal Order of Tibet wore ceremonial garments adorned with pendants of a twenty-four-point star. “Robes and ritual, Adamski admits, help the novice to set his feet firmly in the path he elects to follow.” 

The Order didn’t last, and by 1940 Adamski and a small group of followers moved away, eventually setting up at the base of Mt. Palomar in 1944 (near the famous observatory being built there). His student Alice K. Wells owned the property, a campground and collection of cabins named "Palomar Gardens." Its centerpiece was a little Café that sold mostly hamburgers and hotdogs. Adamski set up his a few telescopes on the property creating a small observatory for the tourist trade, frequently lecturing at the café.

North County Times, June 4, 1948, observatory photo from his 1953 book.

The first trace of hint of Adamski’s flying saucer future might have been in his 1946 booklet, “The Possibility of Life on Other Planets,” which stated, “There is no longer a question as to whether there are other inhabited planets in the universe but as to the type of beings who live there.” Speculating, he described what might be the first draft of his angelic aliens:

“…on planets having lighter atmospheric conditions the forms would be of a more delicate nature... different than our own. The atoms composing them would not be so intensely concentrated... In consequence, the brain cells would also become more active and the race as a whole would turn more to the solving of intellectual problems… [Their] bodies would not be great muscular forms in that case but probably more slender and lithe.”

1949 was the year things really took off.

The book and The Banning Live Wire, Dec. 29, 1949

Then in 1949 Adamski published a book, Pioneers of Space: A Trip to the Moon, Mars and Venus, while presented as fiction, he wrote, “it will not be long before all this will become a reality.” It was an interplanetary tale of alien contact with some familiar Theosophical elements. Earth had many scientifically advanced ancient civilizations, including Atlantea and Lemuria. However, abusing their technology, they came to “destroy themselves.”

“That is the great reason why the Earth people are so far behind [Mars and other planets]... Now it looks like earth is going to have another destruction, for the present civilization is getting very [technologically advanced] but without the wisdom in the way of living ... and it is the very thing that destroyed Atlantea. The people on Venus are still farther ahead ... they have had no such destruction at any time.”

Throughout his life, Adamski used ghost writers, but the thoughts and messages were his. Later in the story, it was revealed that visitors have been coming to our planet since ancient times.

“There have been many great souls sent to earth to teach the way of life ... You call them messiahs, masters, and all sorts of names, but they have come from higher planes of life to start the people of earth on the right path of life ... the last of our messengers whom you call Jesus, was crucified ...” 

Skipping ahead for a moment, Pioneers of Space was later mentioned in Frank Scully’s 1950 book, Behind the Flying Saucers, as if it were non-fiction, and Adamski was described as a scientist. Scully and Adamski became friends, and later attended some of the same saucer conventions.


The Escondido, CA, Times-Advocate, June 20, 1951, carried a short item, “Noted Author Visits Palomar Gardens,” about Frank Scully.  It reported that “Scully and Professor George Adamski spent many hours discussing their forthcoming books, which will sequel their first publications on interplanetary space travel.”

Having a book to promote made Adamski more marketable as a lecturer, and he began speaking more frequently to audiences outside of Palmar Gardens. The Blade Tribune, (Oceanside, CA) March 8, 1950, reported on an upcoming George Adamski lecture. His message was usually optimistic about space visitors, but here Adamski talked about the possibility of hostile invaders:

"He avers that if our Earth people suddenly found themselves threatened by attack from another planet, they would lose no time uniting as one in the common defense. Even Stalin would be preaching cooperation and anxiously seek our alliance and friendship."

The Blade Tribune, (Oceanside, CA) March 8, 1950

Adamski’s saucer career continued to escalate with him producing a series of photographs of spaceships in the sky. He was credited as the co-author of Flying Saucers as Astronomers See Them” in Fate magazine, Sept. 1950. In that article, Adamski was not committal about his UFO photo being a spaceship, saying it might be just “a type of electric discharge… We sincerely doubt whether they have any connection with visitors." A few months later, Adamski had changed his mind. “…in February, 1949, was I successful in getting my first picture of space ships.”  

In “I Photographed Space Ships,” Fate July 1951, he published seven photos and described his career:

“I was guest speaker for the Fallbrook, California, Rotary Club where I talked about the reality of space ships. This was the first of many similar lectures before service clubs in Southern California, which continued through the year of 1950.”

By that time, Adamski had begun selling copies of his photographs, both at his base in Mount Palomar and at his lectures. The photos began appearing in newspapers, but it was the saucers were in the spotlight, not Adamski himself.

Green Bay Press-Gazette, April 14, 1952

Matt Weintstock’s column on the editorial page of the Los Angeles Daily News, June 26, 1952, reflected Adamski’s status at the time. 

“Photos of what are purported to be flying saucers have shown up at KTTV. Owners now say they bought them for $1 each from a prof. George Adamski of Mt. Palomar. Scoffers say the prof really runs a hot dog stand near Palomar and the photos are a, shall we say, sideline. Moreover, they want to see the negative.”

The Adamski lecture for a science fiction convention in San Diego on June 28, 1952 was not well received. (We’ll examine this convention incident in a later article.) Despite their fondness for interplanetary tales, science fiction fans were generally skeptical of flying saucer tales. Many of them walked out on Adamski’s presentation of uncorroborated stories and pictures. Maybe it motivated him to produce more compelling evidence.

Meanwhile, Adamski got another publicity boost in the summer of 1952.

 

Billboard Aug. 23, 1952

The Coming of the Saucers by Kenneth Arnold and Ray Palmer reprinted several of Adamski’s photographs from his Fate article and once more introduced him as “Professor.” Seeing this prompted George Hunt Williamson (1926-1985) to connect with Adamski. In a Oct.19, 1952, letter to a friend, Williamson said that in radio conversation with from aliens:

“We have been told that a man will contact us… there will be a landing in this vicinity by special ship direct from Mars within two or three weeks from now!... Professor George Adamski is in on this too. He is a very great man indeed.”

Blade Tribune, Feb. 4, 1953

The Phoenix Gazette, November 24, 1952

Adamski and a small party of followers were out in the California desert on November 20, 19521, but he alone made contact. The first press on his contact was in The Phoenix Gazette, November 24, 1952, “Flying Saucer 'Passenger' Declares A-Bomb Blasts Reason For Visits” by Len Welch. The story was told by Mr. and Mrs. George Williamson, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Bailey, who claimed to have witnessed the events from a distance. “Professor Adamski described the saucer as... about 20 feet in diameter, translucent but not transparent, with a shining silver finish on the exterior, portholes on the side, and three ball bearing devices underneath.” The man from the saucer communicated primarily in gestures and indicated he was from the planet Venus. “According to the Williamsons and Baileys… the intentions of the visitors is peaceful.” When Adamski asked the visitor why he was here, the spaceman used his “arms to indicate mushroom-shaped clouds associated with atomic experiments... radiation from explosions is causing his people some concern and fear that blasts will destroy everything.”

Sometimes, a bad cover of a song becomes a bigger hit than the original. That’s a bit like what happened with Adamski, his story repackaged what had come before. Back in the 1920s, Theosophy’s believers like Frederick G. Hehr had promoted the notion of angelic beings from Venus come to earth to teach humanity. Others religious figures like Guy Ballard and Eugene Drake had claimed contact with such space people, but most of those claims were on the psychic, not physical plane. 

As for the notion of aliens saving us from destroying ourselves with atomic weapons, that had been floating around in science fiction since at least 1947.

"Will the ancient gods... come back in time to avert an atom war?" From Fantastic Adventures  Nov. 1947"Son of the Sun." by Millen Cooke (as Alexander Blade) illustrated by James Settles.

Most in the press and general public were unaware of what had come before, so it was news to them. Also, the props helped sell the story. Not only did Adamski have multiple witnesses, and photographs, there was physical evidence. The Venusian had left footprints behind, and the soles of his shoes had left behind alien symbols. Williamson even had the foresight to bring along plaster to cast the footprints. 


As his fame spread, so did the confusion that the “Professor” who saw flying saucers was associated with the Mt. Palomar observatory.

Blade Tribune, Jan. 22, 1953

At the time of the first encounter, Adamski had a few low-quality photos of the saucer, but shortly afterwards he produced clearer photos, which he sold at his lectures.

Beginning March 12, 1953, The Corona Daily Independent ran a series of three articles on “Dr.” George Adamski’s lecture given at the Corona Lion’s Club. Justin Hammond wrote an article about Adamski’ lecture and continued the coverage of it in his "Ring Around" column. His story describes the Venusian as looking “just like we do except unusually handsome and that his eyes were somewhat slanted. He had long black hair, very beautiful and wavy.” He quotes Adamski as saying, “Mainly we conversed by mental pictures...”




Hammond didn’t share a description of the saucer, but said, “The good doctor showed us three photos he took of the flying saucer which looked me - undoubtedly I’m wrong - like an out-of doors picture of a three-bulb electric light fixture.” The series made no mention of warnings of atomic bombs, instead focusing on the novelty of the alien encounter. “Dr. Adamski says that spacemen have been visiting Earth for many years. He also said that there may be thousands of them walking the streets of Earth today.” 

An epilogue of sorts appeared a few days later, a letter from the Mayor of Corona, C.R. Miller who said, “no one in his right mind would take any stock in” Adamski’s yarns.

Adamski’s 1952 story was packaged with a previously completed manuscript by a UK author, Desmond Leslie. Their book was published in the Fall of 1953, Flying Saucers Have Landed. Leslie’s foreword discussed the teachings of Theosophy: 

“About eighteen million years ago… came a huge, shining, radiant vessel of dazzling power and beauty, bringing to earth... human beings, of perfection beyond our highest ideals; gods rather than men…” 

The latter part of the book was Adamski’s story of meeting the man from Venus. It became an international best seller, enormous publicity for him. 

Evening Star, December 13, 1953

The Daily Telegraph, Sydney Australia, Oct. 4, 1953

Daily Press, Oct. 23, 1953 

In the months and years that followed, he was considered a flying saucer expert, in demand as a lecturer and frequently interviewed for newspapers, magazines, radio and television programs.

1954 press conference. From Flying Saucer Pilgrimage by Bryant & Helen Reeve, 1957.

Adamski on Long John Nebel’s late-night TV show on WOR, April 30, 1960.

The Times-Advocate (Escondido CA) Jan. 2, 1954, sought his expertise when a fiery object was reported in the skies. Adamski thought it was from Mars, explaining that malfunctioning saucers are blown up before they crash. The falling debris turns to gelatin and disintegrates, to prevent crashed saucers or their debris being retrieved.

Adamski’s success inspired many imitators who became known as Contactees. They virtually took over the flying saucer business, and were supported by George Van Tassel’s annual Giant Rock Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention, which provided a forum and marketplace for the Contactees and their fans.

Despite the crowd of competitors, Adamski remained the top brand. His second book, Inside the Space Ships, also became a bestseller in 1955.

 

Popularity notwithstanding, Adamski had his doubters. Upstart flying saucer magazine publisher James W. Moseley had interviewed Adamski in late 1953, and while he found the “Professor” interesting and charismatic, he had not been convinced. Moseley's Saucer News, printed critical articles and topped it off in the Oct. 1957 “Special Adamski Expose Issue” with articles by Moseley, Irma Baker and Lonzo Dove. It included correspondence with some of Adamski’s supporting witnesses, who admitted that  the story and photographs were untrue.

Saucer News - Adamski Expose Issue

Donald Keyhoe, the director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena rejected Adamski and the Contactees. In his 1959 telegram to a convention promoter, Keyhoe said:

“Your carnival approach to the subject of unidentified flying objects is... offsetting serious work by NICAP and other... fact-finding UFO groups.”

In December 1957, Adamski received a letter on Department of State stationary from R.E. Straith of the “Cultural Exchange Committee,” that stated that the US Government could not officially endorse him, but privately offered their support. The letter was a hoax, a prank by Gray Barker and Jim Moseley. Adamski must have known it was bogus, but he and his followers continued to tout the letter as proof of his credibility. (For further details, see George Adamski, R.E. Straith and the Seven Letters of Mischief.)

Rather than admit to any fraud in his stories and photo, Adamski insisted that it was his critics who were the phonies, part of the saucer cover-up. In Flying Saucers Farewell, 1961, he said: 

"The only way the 'Silence Group' could combat me was to discredit me before the public. If it had not been for the assistance of my friends from other planets, the 'Silence Group' would have achieved its aim.”

From the start, Adamski’s stories escalated into a series of ever more incredible encounters and interplanetary adventures. The entry on Adamski in The UFO Encyclopedia Vol II, 1992, had a section, “Decline and Fall,” where Jerome Clark stated in part:

“Those inclined to accept Adamski at his word... found the story of [his 1962] trip to Saturn more than they could believe. …A postcard written allegedly by space people… was traced to [an address used by] Adamski …Those who replied were asked to contribute money to cover expenses… a scheme to bilk the credulous. …By 1964 Adamski’s name had disappeared even from the pages of England’s widely read Flying Saucer Review… [published by] Adamski's most articulate defender."

Still, George Adamski kept spreading the Space Brothers Gospel. The next year he went on a lecture tour through New York and Rhode Island. He died of a heart attack a few weeks later at the age of 74 on April 23, 1965.

 

Changing Lives: The Adamski Legacy

Without George Adamski, we would not have had UFO researchers conducting a Remote Viewing program for the U.S. government, Robert Bigelow’s (paranormal study group) National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), or its successors and spin-offs: Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS), the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). The key figure leading to all of those was theoretical physicist Harold E. Puthoff.

In Jacques Vallee’s Forbidden Science Vol. 4 entry for Saturday 19 July 1997, he documented a meeting of NIDS in Las Vegas where Chairman of the Board, Hal Puthoff disclosed what prompted him to become involved in the UFO topic:
Hal recalls the day when, as a very studious boy, he left his engineering studies in a fit of atypical behavior to wander downtown, got into a bookstore and mechanically picked up Adamski's book, “and it changed my life,” he said, “even after I recognized his story was bullshit!”

Essentially, Adamski was an opportunist who capitalized on the public’s UFO craze. He dressed his old Royal Order of Tibet philosophy up in flying saucer drag and it went over in a big way, changing many people's lives. When Adamski was exposed to be a fraud, some of the faithful denied it and continued to believe in him. More puzzling, many of those who lost faith in Adamski still clung to the concepts promoted in his stories. Though people may have forgotten Adamski himself, his propaganda lives on. To those who want to believe, any report or rumor of a UFO is a hopeful sign that benevolent visitors in spaceships are here to help and guide our planet. 

. . .

 

Recommended Reading

There's far more to the Adamski story, and many opinions on it. Here are two excellent sources for further study:

Saturday Night Uforia, Saucer Reading Fest part 12 features excellent coverage of the early days of George Adamski.


A Critical Appraisal of George Adamski: The ManWho Spoke to the Space Brothers by Marc Hallet. 


Flying Saucer Fun Gone Bad

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