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. 

A Lost UFO Book Discovered

The Venusians, text and images © Harold J. Berney Estate, 1960 and 2023.

The first person convicted to prison for UFO-related crimes was the subject of an in-depth April 9, 2020, article at The Saucers That Time Forgot, “Harold J. Berney: The FBI's Flying Saucer Fugitive.” There’s been a new development, but first, for those who need it, a recap of the UFO-related part of his story. 

In the mid-1950s, Harold Jesse Berney approached a few individuals and confided that he was working on a top-secret project based on alien technology. Once a prototype was manufactured, the U.S. government contract would guarantee any early investors an enormous return. Hal was an interesting character, charismatic, an inventor, a talented artist, but all of that was overshadowed by his lifelong penchant for fraud. He’s remembered chiefly as a sign painter and swindler. The key thing that led to his downfall and conviction was a book he had written about flying saucers and aliens.

Berney’s story was the same thing he was telling investors, that he’d been hired by the U.S. government to study the technology of a captured flying saucer. Shortly after setting foot on the craft, he was contacted by an alien and accepted the invitation to go to Venus to learn about their technology. Upon his return, he worked with a major government contractor to build the powerful Magnetic Flux Modulator for the defense of the United States

In 1956, Berney worked with Pauline E. Goebel, a major investor, a legal secretary by profession. She typed up his story into a 118-page manuscript, Two Weeks on Venus, saved until the Modulator project was no longer secret. When she got word that Berney had died on another trip to Venus, Pauline tried to recoup the investment of her life savings by taking the manuscript to a publisher. After hearing her story, they suggested she call the police because she’d been swindled. From there, the FBI took over, and when they caught Berney, he claimed to be innocent of fraud, the book “just fiction.” To avoid the maximum penalty, on October 3, 1957, Berney agreed to a guilty plea for lesser crimes, two charges of fraud. He spent about three years in prison, and after his release he went back to work as a sign painter in Silver Spring MD, until his death in 1967. Hal’s name stayed out of the papers, and as far as the world knew, he had no other UFO-related activity.   

Other than a patent application, none of his drawings, paintings or writings are known to have survived. The sole manuscript for Berney’s Two Weeks on Venus was never published, taken by the FBI as evidence in Berney’s trial, afterwards filed with case records. UFO historians have never gotten to examine the text to see if it was merely derivative of early 1950 Contactee tales or was an original science fiction story. Depending on years of waiting for a FOIA response seemed the only hope of seeing it. It came as a delightful surprise to learn, "No, there is another." 

A Warehouse Find

In August of 2023, The Saucers That Time Forgot received an unexpected message in reply to our 2020 article on Berney. It stated, “I have a copy of the actual draft The Venusians by Hal J Berney… with hand painted art…” I texted the number provided, and the following conversation revealed that the book had been found in a Virginia warehouse (over 100 miles from Berney’s last home) and the owner knew nothing about it, or how it got there. Pictures were also sent, about a dozen photographs of a massive manuscript bound in a scrapbook. 

The scrapbook has a hand painted cover of the title, The Venusians, and the book itself is about 525 (single-sided) pages long, including hand-painted illustrations. The author is listed as Hal J. Bernéy, emphasizing that his last name was pronounced not like burn-ee, but like burr-nay.

Examining the photos of the text and illustrations, it indicates that this was Berney’s second attempt at a book. It was made after his conviction, and some of the paintings were made while he was incarcerated. One of the illustrations includes the year 1960 next to Berney’s signature.

An introductory page stated:

“The Venusians

A web of uncontrollable circumstances

This book is the culmination of the controversial manuscript… though at the time was called ‘Two Weeks on Venus’ was merely the outline basis for the now completed book named ‘The Venusians’.

A Fiction Novel by Hal J. Berney”

A following page emphasized the story as presented as a work of fiction:

“There are no true names of persons used in this book. Any similarity to names of persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended as such. The use of names of hotels, corporations, laboratories, Army and Navy personnel, Governments or courts are used fictionally, and do not imply their true connection in any actuality; while the laws in court procedures are correctly stated in a degree in their use, and then surrounded by fiction. The book is written in ambiguous obscureness, and is endowed with intricate, scientific facts. It is felt compulsory by the author to so state here, for his welfare, that the contents of this book are fiction.

Author: Hal J. Berney

Edited by:  Lorene D. Wells”

The Venusians was greatly expanded from the tale begun in Berney’s unpublished Two Weeks on Venus, and the second half of the book continued the story far beyond the events of including his trial for “Conspiring to Defraud through False Pretense.” Harold J.  Berney’s character is called “Albert J. Carlton,” and his company, “The Venusian Corporation of America.” 

Here are a few pages and illustrations from the manuscript that were sent as examples:

Double-page fold out: “Milky Way and our Galaxy Map.”

Figures approaching to examine a landed flying saucer.

“The ship had a flat concaved circular orbit-like band around the center of its ball shape.”

A scene discussing the scientists who would manufacture the Venusian technology on earth.

In Berney’s fictionalized trial, The Grand Jury charged Al Carlton of perpetrating:

“a scheme that disrupted and stagnated the Corporation and its investors and the deliveries of the necessary ships to the United States Government, thus not only depriving the Government, but his investors, and leaving the entire Nation unprotected by the lack of the Venusian ships, and at the mercy of other foreign powers who might obtain the invention from the Defendant.”

The “North American Nebula”

There wasn’t enough shown to reveal the entire story, but it seems the existence of the Venusians visitors were revealed in some kind of public disclosure. There was a scene of a crowd of people gathered under a phenomenal night sky.

“As they sat huddled together, the air seemed filled with soft strange music, as if some great choir of thousands of people were singing heavenly praises."

I AM

Part of the story involved an ill-fated interplanetary romance. Al Carlton had fallen in love with a Venusian princess, but they were separated by her untimely death. Somehow, after his trial, Berney’s character traveled back to Venus. At the end, Al died in an accident and was buried beside the princess. The closing page describes their bittersweet reunion with a religious acknowledgment of “the great ‘I AM’.”

There’s been no documentation found, but there seems to be some overlap between Berney and the spiritual Contactees and the I AM followers, even if they were only among his prey in his investment schemes.

Lost and Found

Prior to this discovery, no one had a clue that the book existed. So far, no further information has been found about it, or Lorene D. Wells, the woman who helped Berney produce it. What will happen to The Venusians? The people who found the manuscript contacted me to get information on the author for the purpose of selling it. I gave them the background on Berney and put them in touch with his surviving relatives. Ideally, the manuscript will find a home with Berney’s family, and that scans of the document are made and made available to researchers. As of this writing, the final fate of the book has yet to be determined. 

. . .

Connections? Two Flying Saucer Corporations

I've been unable to connect Hal Berney to any saucer club, but there was a lot of UFO-related activity nearby. Berney lived in Washington, D.C., but conducted business in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Flying saucer inventor Otis T. Carr's home and office was in Baltimore, Maryland, and there’s some interesting similarities between the two. They both had studied art, but neither of them had a formal education beyond the eighth grade. In the early 1950s, both started developing flying saucer technology, were granted patents for inventions, and incorporated businesses.

Harold J. Berney’s Telewand Corp. sought investors for his “Magnetic Flux Modulator.”
Otis T. Carr’s OTC Enterprises Inc. sought investors for his “Utron Electric Accumulator.”

Berney’s Modulator was a box unit that produced "its own power by drawing energy from the atmosphere.” Carr’s Utron produced “free energy” to power “a fourth dimensional space vehicle... the OTC-X1 circular-foil spacecraft.”

Carr holding Utron Electric Accumulator, 1957.

Both attracted believers in Contactee lore, but Carr was far more public in recruiting investors. Carr employed a publicist, Margaret Storm (author of Return of the Dove - a Theosophical biography of Nikola Tesla as a Venusian). Alice Beulah Schutz as a stenographer, and as A.D.K. Luk, she wrote Law of Life, a book for the “I AM” saucer-related religious cult. Whether through her or another source, Berney was aware of the religion and prominently featured a mention of “I AM” in the closing line of his book.

A Distinctive Saucer Design

The typical UFO of the day was pictured like a saucer or an automobile hubcap. Another distinctive saucer design debuted around 1957, a windowless elliptical fuselage ringed by an orbit-like band around its center. In Carr’s colorful spiral-bound pamphlet, published in October 1957, “OTC Enterprises, Inc, Brings You Atoms For Peace,” there was a spectacular illustration of his concept for a “Fourth Dimensional Space Vehicle.” The original art hung in his office and replicas and 17 x22 inch lithographs of the picture were offered to the public.

1957 Carr publicity photo.

The photo of Carr in front of the picture seems to show the artist’s signature in the bottom right corner, but it was cropped out of the published versions. While the identity of the artist is unknown, his space scene and the distinctive flying saucer design look very much like the work of Hal Berney, and an identical design appears on the cover of The Venusians. Berney and Carr’s flying saucers looked like they all came from the same factory on Venus.

Berney was arrested in March 1957 and was sentenced to prison in Oct. (about the time Carr printed the brochure). The book and art apparently began during or after his prison sentence, one picture is dated 1960. Without documentation, all we can say is that it’s possible Berney saw Carr’s saucer and copied it for his book cover. They are too similar in style and design to ascribe to coincidence.

Similar Fates

Both Berney and Carr were charged with crimes related to their flying saucer investment schemes.

Berney and Carr share the rare distinction of being among the few Saucer Swindlers to ever serve time behind bars in punishment for their crimes.