Airboy #88, June 1951 features a little-known UFO story, "The Great Plane From Nowhere!" The 13-page story features no credits, but it's believed to be illustrated by Ernest Schroeder. You don't need to know much to get started. Adventurer Davy Nelson, aka Airboy, was the son of an aviator. His miraculous plane was named Birdie. In our summary we've renamed some of the characters just for fun.
The story begins with Professor George Adamski observing a spaceship from his observatory in atop Mount Palomar, California.
Captain Thomas Mantell is sent in pursuit of the object, but it is too high.
Airboy is called in by the Pentagon, and after they modify Birdie for the high altitude flight, he approaches the strange high-flying craft. He's pulled into it. Abducted!
Airboy becomes the first Contactee. He learns they fly the saucers and have come here after a natural disaster destroyed their world. Their ship is a flying city, Argus. He has been chosen to deliver a message to our world from the visitors, that they come in peace and are bearing gifts.
After the nations of the world decide to welcome the people of Argus, a landing site is chosen and Argus begins to descend. Earth's fleet of planes sent to escort them, but without warning or explanation, Earth attacks!
Airboy sides with Argus and gives them military advice on how to use their unarmed saucers to defend against the military aggression of the people of Earth.
Argus is saved. Perhaps realizing that 1950s Earth was not ready to accept extraterrestrial immigrants wearing dresses, the people of Argus make other plans. Airboy goes back home, but we aren't shown the consequence of him siding with the aliens. All's well that ends well.
This story was published in 1951, a year before George Adamski's Nov. 20, 1952 close encounter with Orthon from Venus, another benevolent visitor here to share wisdom, peace and knowledge from beyond.
The full story is online at Comic Book+.com:
Regarding names I like the assistant astronomer's name: Frisby. After all a Frisbee is a different type of flying saucer.
ReplyDeleteAs for Airboy and his plane Birdie - c'mon. What's the advantage of a plane that flaps its wings? And check out that mothership -- did the aliens modify the design of Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose?
Thx very much for the interpretive summary. I've had a copy of this for years and never bothered reading it :P I did note that it seems to be the first depiction of flying discs that actually spin. These early comic books seem to be getting their information from other realms or something because the 'saucer' depicted on the cover of 'Vic Torry' resembled closely a re-entry vehicle secretly built by Goodyear Aerospace as part of project 'Pye Wacket' that was originally planned by Convair/General Dynamics but seems to have been continued secretly by Goodyear in the early 1960s. (See Crux #2, UFOlogy Notebook 3/5 pp. 17-18)
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