Before the term UFO for Unidentified Flying Object took hold, every flying weird thing was called a Flying Saucer - at least by the newspapers. John Jacob Swaim, though only age twelve, was found to be credible. He reported seeing a "cucumber ship," but also referred to it as a "saucer." What makes the story more remarkable is that Swaim the sighting included a small humanoid, and the fact that physical traces- tiny foot prints- were left behind to be examined by authorities. First, the story as discussed in The Belleville Telescope from Belleville, Kansas, November 11, 1954.
SEES SAUCER AND MAN, TOO A story appearing in the September 8 issue of the Wichita Eagle by Don Pinkston, reporter, concerning a 12-year-old Coldwater boy, John Jacob Swaim seeing a "flying saucer and a little man" was sent to The Telescope by Mrs. Clara Blakeloy of Scandia, a great-aunt of the boy. The boy's story seemed to be backed up by odd-looking footsteps found in the farm field of his father, John Swaim, the next morning by the county sheriff and other spectators. The news story indicates that John Jacob's "little man, and the saucer he flew away in. is the biggest topic of conversation in Coldwater and the surrounding community these days." Mrs. John Swaim, the boy's mother, is a niece of Mrs. Blakeley. More people read the Telescope than any other paper in North Central Kansas
Here's the story that had them talking:
Hutchinson News, Herald KS, Sept 15, 1954
On the editorial page of the Arkansas City Traveler, where it was noted that a Government investigation of the incident was unlikely. They close the article by defining their policy on printing saucer stories, "The reader is left to judge for himself..."
The Arkansas City Traveler, Sept. 20, 1954
Often misspelled as "Swain" in the few places that mention the sighting.
Gray Barker later covered the Swaim sighting story in Saucerian #6, Spring 1955, pages 12-13
The Lincoln Star coverage had the most detailed description of the unusual small footprints found at the sighting scene of this early close encounter of the third kind.
The Lincoln Star, Sept. 24, 1954
Another Cucumber
Project Blue Book has no file on this incident, however their files do carry a report on an earlier flying cucumber- one carried on the roll as "unidentified," Incident #252, dated 27 Jan 1949:
Witness sketch by Capt. Sannes, USAF
A UFO sighting by a military witness AF Captain EckermanSannes and his wife Dorothy, between Cortez and Braderton, Florida. https://www.fold3.com/image/6792306
Are these two cucumbers connected or coincidence? "The reader is left to judge for himself..."
Little Green Men from Mars were not initially given any serious thought as being the answer to flying saucers. In 1947, most people thought that if flying saucers were real, they must be a secret military project- ours or by other countries spying on the USA. Space aliens were taken no more seriously than the earlier talk of mischievous gremlins sabotaging airplanes during World War II.
The first report of contact with alien beings from saucers was made in Nashville, Tennessee in early July 1947, and published in the day after the story of the "captured flying disc" story from Roswell, New Mexico:
The Nashville Tennessean, July 9, 1947, page one
All Over the Nation People Talk Saucers
The flying saucer furore has finally hit Nashville... One man, apparently sane and sober, wrote the editor of The Nashville Tennessean, a long interesting letter about his brush with a couple of Men from Mars on a nearby flying field. These strange little men, “all heads and arms and legs, glowing like fireflies,” landed and alighted from a flying saucer as he drove along a highway, the man wrote. The man from Nashville and the Men from Mars exchanged greetings (in sign language) and the saucer finally took off in a cloud of dust, so the letter says.
The Nashville Tennessean, July 9, 1947
Indistinguishable from a joke?
Describing the story, Jerome Clark in The UFO Encyclopedia Volume 2, 1992, said,
"The newspaper account characterizes the correspondent (whose letter was only paraphrased, not published) as 'apparently perfectly sane and sober,' but the story sounds more like a practical joke than a serious report."
The letter may not have been genuine, but the account is important for being the first published, and closely resembles many other that would eventually surface later, including a number of accounts told or published at the each year on April 1st.
As with so many of the most interesting UFO cases featured here at The Saucers That Time Forgot, Project Blue Book has no file on this incident.
Gail Sprague, illustration for The Saucerian #2, 1953
This case cannot truly be considered forgotten because Gray Barker devoted an entire chapter to it in his classic 1956 book, They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.
John Black and John Van Allen told authorities they had been mining "fissionable material" in the Marble Creek area near Brush Creek, California. On at least two occasions, they witnessed a flying saucer land and a small man get out, fill a pail with water, then fly away. There seemed to be a pattern to the visits, so the miners intended to be ready to shoot at the saucer when it returned. They consulted the local law enforcement asking for permission to fire at it. The Brush Creek incident raised some ethical and legal challenges. Can aliens be shot for trespassing? Captain Fred Preston of the County Sheriff's Department, said no.
Idaho State Journal June 25, 1953
Long Beach Independent, June 25, 1953
Gray Barker, author of They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.
Gray Barker reported on the case in the first issue of The Saucerian, and followed up in the second issue, "Report on the Brush Creek Saucer," which was the basis for his coverage in They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.
To me the story somehow smacked of truth, and I felt I should try to get to the bottom of it. Paul Spade, an amateur astronomer of California, who had volunteered his services to saucer investigation in his area, also volunteered to go to Brush Creek and look into the matter.
Spade provided the most detailed description of the saucer argument:
The little man wore green trousers, a jacket and a tie. His shoes were particularly strange in that they seem to be so remarkably flexible. Although they were distinctly recognizable issues, they seemed almost to be a part of the man's feet. The outfit was topped off with a green cab over black hair. He seem like a normal person and except for his small stature and somewhat odd dress.
They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers
300 people were ready for the saucer's return, but apparently a much smaller number was ready at the alleged landing site.
Long Beach Independent, July 20, 1953
The Chico Enterprise-Record, July 21, 1953
The saucer did not return. Among the puzzles in this case is why the miners would have wanted to shoot their visitor. In the trespasses on their camp, the little man only took a bucket of water on each visit. That's hardly a crime worth punishing if it risks starting an interplanetary war.
We were unable to find much on John Q. Black, but the obituary for John J. Van Allen indicates that he was a veteran of World War I, and died on June 3, 1957, at the age of 64.
This Brush Creek incident is not forgotten, and is cited in many UFO databases and prominent books like Passport to Magonia by Jacques Vallée. However, considering the absence of tangible evidence, it would seem to be fit only for a discussion of folklore. For further reading, see the entry by Patrick Gross at UFOs at Close Sight:
Project Blue Book Case does have a 12-page file: 20 May 1953, Brush Creek, California. The Air Force closed the case on the Brush Creek incident, and it was classified a hoax.
. . .
A special thanks to Louis Taylor of Information Dispersalfor the original UP photo of Black and Van Allen.
Flying Saucer From Mars was a 1955 best-selling book by British amateur astronomer Cedric Allingham. It told of his story of a flying saucer sighting in 1954 and direct contact with a human-looking extraterrestrial. In may ways it resembled the story of George Adamski, and seemed to be independent confirmation that visitors from other planets were initiating contact.
Science fiction magazine ad, 1955
This historic photo is perhaps the first of its kind. Since 1947, many alleged photos of flying saucers have been produced, but in his book, Allingham presented a picture of an extraterrestrial being, his visitor from Mars.
In the 1950s, flying saucer stories were often front page news, and many newspapers and magazines discussed or reviewed Allingham's sensational book.
Big Spring Daily Herald, April 26, 1955
The book impressed a skeptical science fiction book reviewer: “I can say this: as a book, Allingham’s “Flying Saucers From Mars” is by a long, long way the best written, sanest, most unimpassioned and convincing that I have seen to date,not excluding Dr. Menzel’s.” He went on to write, “It has none of the occultism that is making other Saucer treatises ridiculous. It’s the kind of story that could convince a jury.” P. Schuyler Miller, “The Reference Library” Astounding, October 1955
Flying Saucer From Mars by Cedric Allingham was a literary hoax by astronomer Patrick Moore who attempted to one-up George Adamski's book Flying Saucers have Landed. Not only was the saucer and encounter false, so was the author Allingham. Patrick Moore had a history as a practical joker, and he wrote the book as a spoof. At least that's the story according to Christopher Allan and Steuart Campbell's 1986 article, Flying Saucer from Moore's? in Magonia.
Patrick Moore had a love for space and astronomy, and enjoyed educating the public about it, and was knighted in 2001 for "services to the popularisation of science and to broadcasting." Ironically, his first television appearance was for the purpose of discussing flying saucers. He argued against them. Moore was good friends with Desmond Leslie (the co-author of George Adamski's book) and appeared in Leslie's 1956 UFO home movie, "Them in the Thing!" In it, Moore portrayed a skeptic, using Dr. Donald Menzel's book as definitive evidence that flying saucers were not real.
Sir Patrick Moore denied the allegations of the literary hoax, but did continue to discuss UFOs from time to time. In his 1972 book, Can You Speak Venusian?, he discussed UFO history and the unbelievability of the 1950s Contactees in the chapter “Crockery from the Void.”
“It was around this time, too, that a serious split occurred in the ranks of Flying Saucery. The Independent Thinkers divided themselves into two distinct camps. There werethe ‘contacts,’ following Adamski and Allingham. Then there were the more cautious investigators, who dismissed these contact reports as being due to hallucinations orhoaxes, but who still maintained that the Earth was under surveillance. The very term ‘Flying Saucer’ was tacitly dropped, to be replaced by the much more imposing titleof Unidentified Flying Object, or U.F.O."
In this clip from 1969, Sir Patrick Moore interviewed a man who
was able to speak and write alien languages from other planets.
If Flying Saucer From Mars was a hoax, is there a clue in the name of the mysterious Cedric Allingham? Some of the anagrams it produces are "Marginal, Clichéd" and "Magical Children." As with so many of the most interesting UFO cases featured here at The Saucers That Time Forgot, Project Blue Book has no file on this incident.
