Prostitution, crime, drugs, and homosexuality – these were the subjects of the first three books by Jess Stearn (1914-2002). Stearn was born in Syracuse, New York, and after graduating college in 1936, became a reporter for the Daily News, “New York’s Picture Newspaper.” His regular beat was reporting straight news, but in the Nov. 27, 1953, issue, he covered something uncharacteristically light, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Here’s his report on the flight of a balloon made by Goodyear Tire, one depicting an alien space invader with a disintegrator gun.
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| Photo by Nick Sorrentino |
“As a sign of our times – the Flying Saucer era – the parade featured an inflated Space Man 70 feet tall and 40 feet around. Though held down by a score of men at guy lines, the Space Man almost whipped off into space by a brisk wind a couple of times as the kids screamed their enjoyment.”
UFOs were not his normal beat, but he wrote an epic 4-part article on the topic that we’ll cover later. Stearn wrote for the Daily News for 17 years, then in 1960 became a writer and associate editor at Newsweek magazine for a few years, leaving it to be a full-time career as an author of non-fiction books.
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| Jess Stearn, 1964 -& 1973 |
The Door to the Future
Back in 1952, by chance Stearn had met Maya Perez, a “sensitive,” who gave him a reading of his future. It meant nothing at the time but turned out to be the first step in his long transformation from skeptic into believer. As years passed, Stearn felt her predictions had come to pass. Researching soothsayers, he came to believe that some like Jeanne Dixon had genuine psychic powers. It resulted in his 1963 book, The Door to the Future. Even greater success came in 1967 with his best-selling biography, Edgar Cayce: The Sleeping Prophet. Afterwards Stearn’s writing focused on New Age and paranormal topics from Yoga to reincarnation, and he was a frequent guest on national television talk shows.
Paranormal books of all sorts were frequently displayed and advertised together, UFOs next to ESP, astrology, witchcraft, and the like.
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| Right, ad for Bantam Books' Paranormal selections. |
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| Fate magazine ad July 1973 |
A Few Close Encounters with the UFO Topic
Stearn focused on internal mysteries and didn’t write about flying saucers and aliens, however, there were a few mentions. In Stearn’s 1972 book, The Search for a Soul: Taylor Caldwell's Psychic Lives, Caldwell said that during the Biblical end of days, super intelligent space beings would arrive to destroy the earth.
Stearn lectured on Edgar Cayce at a convention focused on psychics, ESP, and faith healers, PSI ’74, in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Aug. 2, 3 and 4, 1974. Their program included a token UFO guest, billed as “Charles Hickson, UFO witness." For more on the convention, see: PSI ‘74: Psychics and the UFO Witness from Pascagoula.
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| Sarasota Herald Tribune, July 21, 1974 |
UFOs surfaced again in Stearn’s 1980 book, The Truth about Elvis (1982 retitle: Elvis: His Spiritual Journey). The back cover said that Elvis Presley, “…believed in reincarnation, astrology, and UFO's… Here is the largely unknown story of Elvis’ relationship with Larry Geller, his spiritual mentor…” Geller said that Elvis and his father Vernon had a UFO sighting once at Graceland. It reminded Vernon that on the night Elvis was born there had been an unexplained blue glow (that seemed to herald his arrival).
Stearn attended other conferences where UFOs were in the mix, such as the Whole Earth Expo at the Pasadena Convention Center, May 13 -15, 1988. A review from Pursuit magazine:
“…with holistic health, spiritual healing, channeling, UFO contactees and cases, psychic performances, reincarnation and meditation… at least a dozen speakers or shows going on at any one time…talks by Dr. Andrija Puharich, Budd Hopkins, Tom Bearden, Whitley Strieber, Linda Goodman, Ralph Blum, Timothy Leary, Jess Stearn, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Charles Thomas Cayce, Stanton Friedman, Bill Moore, Edith Fiore, Jack Houck, Brad Steiger, etc., etc…”
Stearn kept writing through the years and was interviewed about his latest book in The Jackson Hole Guide, Sept. 12, 1990. By the 90s, many of the psychic topics he’d been written about had been rebranded as “Remote Viewing.” Stearn’s last book was published in 1998, and he died at the age of 87. His obituary appeared in the Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2002. No mention was made of the time Stearn had written a series of articles examining the topic of flying saucers from other worlds.
Stearn’s 1959 Story on Saucer Cultists
Back in 1959, Jess Stearn had a lot to say about UFOs. His four-part article series appeared in the New York Daily News from July 13-16, 1959. Curiously, his well-researched, far-ranging examination did not mention two extremes, Contactee George Adamski or Donald E. Keyhoe of NICAP. Filling their roles was George King of the Aetherius Society, leader of an actual flying saucer region, and for contrast, members of Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York, advocating a scientific study of UFOs.
An overview of each article is provided below, including a picture of each page. Unfortunately, the photographs did not scan well, but the series also featured a great collection of pictures of saucer personalities. Readers may find better viewing of the articles collected into a PDF.
Spacenik Gold Mine in the Sky: Saucer Cults Draw Devotees and Dollars
Part one started off with a scathing skeptical tone.
“The impact of the flying saucer cult is not confined to crackpots and Mystics. It affects countless multitudes, living otherwise drab lives, who find a new interest in social status in the folderol of saucer research.”
However, Stearn pointed out there were reasonable people also interested in UFOs, like the representative of Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York who said that the hoaxers and hucksters were hurting serious study. “Their only interest in saucers is what they can get out of them.”
Much of the first article dealt with Contactees who had spoken at George Van Tassel’s Spacecraft Convention at Giant Rock.
Some of the views of the supposedly enlightened Contactees were racist even by 1959 standards. Backwoods Buck Nelson said, “When I was on Mars, the schools were all segregated, Negroes and white, and everybody was happy about it.” He went on to say that Jews, Negroes, and white Christians were grouped in separate areas on their planet. George Hunt Williamson claimed that Jewish leaders had formed a “Hidden Empire” of world rulers who were preventing the truth from being known about the space people.
The following people were interviewed or discussed in part one: Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York, Buck Nelson, George King, George Van Tassel, George Hunt Williamson, Howard Menger, Dan Fry, and Henry J. Taylor.
Blonde Venus in a Saucer: Some Dish
Part two focused heavily on George King of the Aetherius Society, who had been told by a voice from Venus that earth was headed destruction unless we returned to the teachings of “the Master Jesus, the Lord Buddha, Shri Krishna, etcetera" (who were all emissaries from Venus).
There was a bit on Truman Bethurum and his claim of meeting lovely space pilot Captain Aura Rhanes, and even a photo of the woman who claimed to be her. There was also a description of Buck Nelson’s saucer enterprise in the Ozarks.
Bird? Plane? Saucer? Only a Pingpong Ball
Part three had skeptic Jules St. Germain tell how he’d tricked George Van Tassel into “confirming” a hoax. It also delved into Van Tassel’s many outlandish claims -- and the fortunes he collected from donors. The saucer investment schemes of Otis T. Carr were discussed, with some input from Long John Nebel.
Sane & Some Some Still See Saucers
Part four took on a tone sympathetic to witnesses. The story of George Wilson was told, a pilot with 20 years of experience who became a witness and “believer” in UFOs as something beyond earthly technology. Stearn summarized the position of the Air Force. Isabel Davis of Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York thought it was ridiculous for the Air Force to deny saucers when they had so many unexplained reports. Their policy had clashed with the reports of pilots like Peter Kilian of American Airlines, who had witnessed three bright saucers and so had 35 of his passengers.
Long John Nebel speculated that “the so-called spacemen” acted like they were working undercover, perhaps exploiting the gullible, and could be “enemy agents.”
Stearn noted, “From believing in flying saucers, it sometimes is only a step for some saucer addicts to believe in spacemen -- a belief stemming more from their own insecurities, psychologists say, then from anything in the sky.”
The Second Life of Jess Stearn
After his examination of the flying saucers, Jess Stearn rejected the topic, concluding it was full of phonies and fakes, and insecure people who needed something to believe in. Yet somehow, he came to strongly believe in something perhaps more intangible, psychic powers. As an advocate of reincarnation, Stearn wanted no funeral; he believed he would live again. If so, he was given another chance to evaluate the case for UFOs in his next life.
