Dashiell Hammett and Flying Saucers

What did Dashiell Hammett have to do with flying saucers? Nothing, but the characters he created are a different story. One of them is remarkably similar to the legend of the alien bodies record at Roswell, New Mexico. 

Dashiell Hammett is best known for his 1930 detective novel, The Maltese Falcon, which was later made into the classic 1941 film starring Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade. A few years later, The Adventures of Sam Spade radio program that ran from 1946 - 1951. The sponsor was Wildroot Cream-Oil, who also used Hammett’s character in a series of single-page advertisements in newspapers and magazines disguised as comic strips.

 Although he had nothing to do with the ads, the comics were called, “Dashiell Hammett’s Adventures of Sam Spade,” and the March 19, 1950 episode was titled, “The Case of the Flying Saucer.”

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Later the same year, another of Hammett’s characters was drawn into an even bigger story, one about a captured flying saucer and alien bodies - both dead and alive. But first, let’s skip ahead for a moment to 1958.

The Thin Man

Hammett’s 1934 novel The Thin Man had several movies based on the characters, Nick and Nora Charles, and was later the basis for a television series on NBC from 1957–59, starring Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk.

Opening credits to The Thin Man

Like with Hammett’s other characters, the series was mostly detective stories, but once again, flying saucers entered the picture. Episode 32 of season one was titled, “The Saucer People.” From a newspaper listing from Aug. 29, 1958:

The Thin Man, starring Peter Lawford. Nick and Nora Charles investigate“The Saucer People.” A scientist claims he has been riding in a flying saucer – thereby hoping to devise a scheme for fleecing thousands from their life savings. 

Unfortunately, we were not able to locate a copy of the episode itself.


Secret Agent X-9 and the Captured Saucer of 1950

Along with artist Alex Raymond (the creator of Flash Gordon), Dashiell Hammett created the Secret Agent X-9 newspaper comic strip in 1934.

Hammett left the series after the first year, but it continued a successful run in the hands of other writers and artists until 1996. From 1945 to 1960, the series was written and drawn by Mel Graff, who finally gave X-9 a name, Phil Corrigan. In May to July 1950, Graff featured a story where X-9 was drawn into a sensational case involving a captured flying saucer and the aliens found inside.

STTF reader ISleepNow posted a video on YouTube titled, Secret Agent X-9 "The Day After Aztec," saying, “These panels of the Secret Agent X-9 comic strip… were originally published in May through June of 1950 making them the earliest significant flying saucer story as far as newspaper comic strips were concerned. But of greater concern was the possible truth lying behind them.”

4-minute video of X-9 on the captured saucer case.

The final strips were not included, but we've located some key selections to finish X-9's saucer adventure.

In the final episode, X-9 is briefed on the astonishing truth about flying saucers, but we readers lacked the security clearance to be included.

Mel Graff's story about little alien men was very much influenced by Frank Scully's 1950 book, Behind the Flying Saucers, and the hoax on which it was based. The book was also the basis for the legends of Hangar 18 and aliens found in crash near Roswell,

X-9 was back to dealing with more traditional spy business, but later there were at least two other UFO episodes. In Sept. 1966 by Robert Lubbers (aka Bob Lewis), the strip below shows X-9 with "Tracking Control" monitoring a UFO’s entry into the earth’s atmosphere.

In the hands of writer Archie Goodwin and artist Al Williamson, in 1978, the series featured another UFO storyline, with Corrigan investigating the abduction of the USA's top scientists.

The Stuff that Dreams are Made of

No, Dashiell Hammett didn’t write about saucers, but his novel The Maltese Falcon was about a struggle over a priceless relic that turned out to be a counterfeit. That’s something very similar to the situation ufologists often find themselves in, and a bit like the ending of the Humphrey Bogart movie version of Hammett's s novel.

Flying Saucer Swindlers: Silas Newton and the UFO Crash

In 1950, the public had been told that flying saucers are real, but there was even more exciting news circulating. A scientist disclosed that four spaceships had been captured by the US government - and we should expect another flying saucer landing soon. The story was issued by United Press (UP) and published as front page news by many papers across the USA on October 20, 1950.

Hartford Courant Oct. 20, 1950

The Minneapolis Star Oct. 20 1950 

The "scientist" was oil man Silas M. Newton, billed in the news as a geophysicist. The Newton story began circulating in late 1949, and spread faster than a virus, and by early 1950, several variations of it were in circulation. 

... the story got from Silas Newton to J. Edgar Hoover: Newton told George Koehler (employed at radio station KMYR in Denver), who told Morley Davies, who told Ford dealers Murphy and van Horn, who told auto dealer Fick, who told the editor of the Kansas City Wyandotte Echo. By that time, Koehler had become "Coulter," just like a game of "gossip" (or a game of "pi")!       

This article was picked up in the news, where it caught the interest of the OSI. The OSI agent passed the story on to Guy Hottel of the FBI, and he gave the 8th-hand story to Hoover. http://www.nmsr.org/aztec.htm

The FBI Hottel Memo

A version of Silas Newton's story was recorded by agent Guy Hottel of the FBI New Orleans office on March 31, 1950. It's a real document, but it has often been misrepresented, taken out of context. Since it surfaced in the 1970s, the "Hottel Memo" has been frequently cited as evidence of a government cover-up of recovered UFOs, and also falsely linked to another incident, the alleged flying saucer crash known as the "Roswell Incident." 

The document itself can be viewed at the FBI Vault:

FBI Memorandum - Subject: Flying Discs (Guy Hottel Memo)

In 2011, Isaac Koi made a thorough examination of the frequent "re-discoveries" of the Guy Hottel Memo: "Debunked! The FBI alien bodies memo – A case study in the reinvention of the wheel"

Behind the Flying Saucers

Silas Newton's story really caught fire when it was picked up in a national magazine. Frank Scully was a Hollywood gossip columnist, with "Scully's Scrapbook" dishing up tinsel town gab for Variety magazine. Scully was also a respected reviewer of literature and wrote a few books of his own. In 1949, he published two Variety columns on the discovery of flying saucers (Aztec) and a follow-up piece Jan. 11, 1950 with 20 questions he thought the Air Force should answer, accusing the US Government of covering things up.

Newton and Scully

Those columns laid the foundation for what is arguably, the most influential book in UFO history, Behind the Flying Saucers, the original story of the cover-up of small alien bodies retrieved from captured UFOs in New Mexico. The tale also featured other elements that would later resurface in the resurrection and expansion of the story of the saucer debris taken to Roswell, such as the recovery and scientific examination of the spaceship's strange light metal, advanced technology and the dead aliens it contained.

The saucer story itself was thin, barely fleshed out from Scully's sketchy columns, but he added details about how oilman Silas Newton had heard about the discs from the mysterious magnetic research scientist Scully called "Dr. Gee," and there was extensive discussion of how the saucers were constructed on the "System of Nines," and flew using magnetic propulsion. Newton was interested in using that alien magnetic technology to detect oil, and that would come to play an important role in his future.

The story was a hoax, part of a scam by Newton to provide an exotic technological origin for the "doodlebug" he was selling with partner Leo GeBauer, a device that was supposed to magnetically detect oil deposits beneath the earth. He was tried and found guilty of fraud in 1953.

Before: Co-defendant Leo GeBauer, his attorney, and Silas Newton

After: Newton Sentenced

Here's a short version of the Silas Newton Aztec hoax, a non-UFO article examining the episode as just as an oil swindle. It's from the site of the The American Oil & Gas Historical Society:

Doodlebugs, Magnetic Loggers & Flying Saucers 

Here's a rare recording of Silas Newton telling the story himself. This undated 24-minute audio was part of Wendy Connor's Faded Discs collection: 

Aztec, NM. 1948. Silas Newton relates the crash of a UFO with humanoids.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Although the hoax had its critics, it took two years before it was debunked by J.P. Cahn in "The Flying Saucers and the Mysterious Little Men" in True Magazine, Sept. 1952, and in a follow-up piece in True Magazine, Aug. 1956, "Flying Saucer Swindlers." Newton and Scully exploited the hopes and fears of those interested in the UFO mystery, promoting the belief that extraterrestrials were visiting Earth and that there was a Government conspiracy to hide it. When the hoax was exposed, the story was largely forgotten, but the alien and cover-up concepts were adopted as canonical beliefs. The Air Force was portrayed as a villain in Newton's story and Scully's book, and it continued to be a source of irritation. In 1965, answering a request for information about it, the Air Force replied:

For more on the Frank Scully book, see the previous STTF article,

Operation Hush-Hush: The UFO Crash and ET Bodies Cover-Up

The Shape of Things to Come

As for Silas Newton's 1950 prediction that a flying saucer would soon land, he was off. It happened in 1952, according to the story told by George Adamski.

For more on the Adamski hoax, see:
Saucer News presents: the George Adamski Exposé

The Saucers That Time Forgot will be presenting an series of in-depth articles on other early Flying Saucer Swindlers. Next up, Harold J Berney: The FBI’s Flying Saucer Fugitive.