Project Saucer: The Movie

There was a great UFO movie from the early 1950s that was never made – until the 1960s. The story centered on the capture of a flying saucer and the exploitation of its technology – the intriguing concept behind the Roswell crash story and many other UFO legends. 

The investigation of unidentified flying objects by the United States Air Force was officially known a Project: Sign, then Grudge, then Blue Book, but originally more famous under the nickname of Project Saucer. One Hollywood producer thought that’d make a catchy name for a motion picture. Box Office magazine, September 16, 1950, carried an announcement for a new movie on page 28:

Jerry Fairbanks Plans Flying Disc Subject

“Better move over, Buck Rogers… Hollywood’s filmmakers are adding space sagas to their dockets. Latest of the movie moguls to probe an explanatory finger into the subject is Jerry Fairbanks, producer of commercial and industrial subjects and video films, who is planning Project Saucer as a feature length entry for theatrical release. He has booked Rip Van Ronkel (who scripted Destination Moon to prepare the storyline and will shoot the opus in color starting this winter, with distribution arrangements yet to be set. Data to be incorporated in the film, Fairbanks said, has been compiled by his research department for the past three years.” 

Another mention came in the Oct. 13 column by Dick Williams in the Los Angeles Mirror:

“Jerry Fairbanks is planning ‘Project Saucer’ based on the official Air Force investigation group (which persistent reports indicate is still busy at work at Wright Field, Dayton, O., under Central Intelligence). Variety says Warner Bros. is interested in ‘Behind the Flying Saucers.’ Republic will start work on ‘Flying [Disc] Men from Mars’ next month.”

The project stalled, but another attempt at making the film was announced in Broadcasting Telecasting, April 5, 1954: 

Broadcasting Telecasting, April 5, 1954

Catalog of Copyright Entries, Jan-June 1954

The timing or the money wasn’t right, and it stalled again. In 1964 Jerry Fairbanks revived Project Saucer, but it took two years to get the cameras rolling. Fairbanks was quoted promoting it in an April 11, 1966, Daily Variety, stating that the script for Project Saucer was written by Rip Van Ronkel “over a decade ago when flying saucers first became the rage in the U.S.” (Sadly, Van Ronkel had died the year before at the age of 56.)

 
The screenplay was submitted to the U.S. Department of Defense, but they objected to how the Air Force and the CIA were portrayed, and they requested a few changes. See the letter to Jerry Fairbanks dated 12 April 1966 in the CIA files.

As a result of the negative reaction from the DOD, Fairbanks, director Frank Telford and “a new team of writers” updated the screenplay, changing the story away from being a Project Blue Book investigation. As it was retooled, the Vietnam-era anti-war sentiment influenced the script and probably the location of the action. The organization sponsoring the UFO retrieval was not named as the CIA. Also, the role of the Air Force was virtually eliminated from the story and more of the characters were changed to civilian specialists.

From the revised screenplay

To save on the budget, the movie was set to be filmed in Spain, but Fairbanks was able to strike deals to make it for the same cost and began production in Hollywood in the fall of 1966 with National Telefilm Associates (NTA). When completed, Project Saucer sat on the shelf for over a year until a distributor could be found, finally released in early 1968 as The Bamboo Saucer. The title was a play on the Cold War phrase, “Bamboo Curtain,” itself a variant of “Iron Curtain” for the demarcation between the Communist and capitalist states of East Asia, particularly the People's Republic of China.

The plot of the movie was slightly similar to Mikel Conrad’s 1950 film, The Flying Saucer, with rival teams from the US and Soviets out to capture a flying saucer for their nation. The 1950 film was about a secret terrestrial weapon but this time, the saucer was of extraterrestrial origin. Otherwise, there were no science fiction elements, the story was based on UFO lore from the genuine – the saucer-related death of Captain Thomas F. Mantell on January 7, 1948, to the fantastic - Frank Scully’s magnetic spaceships from Behind the Flying Saucers.

In advance of its release, The Bamboo Saucer was promoted via the flyer pictured above at George van Tassel’s famous flying saucer Contactee convention in October 1967: 

“N.T.A. salutes the 14th annual Spacecraft Convention at Giant Rock, and respectfully directs your attention to the exciting new motion picture…” 

The copy teased the story:

“From deep inside Red China a peasant’s drawing of a terrifying object from outer space spurs a dramatic search with international significance, terminating in an incredible flight through infinity!”

 The actual theatrical movie poster for The Bamboo Saucer said:

"’IT LANDED HERE...IN RED CHINA!’ These words trigger the most incredible life-and-death struggle between RUSSIA and the UNITED STATES...who would be first to find this fantastic machine from outer space and unlock its awesome secrets!”

 

The Depiction of UFO Concepts in the Movie

Our summary of the film skips many of the plot elements and drama to focus on the UFO aspects of the story. If you wish to watch the movie before reading, I can be viewed on YouTube. 

While flying the experimental X-109, test pilot Fred Norwood encounters a UFO, a large blue disc with a domed top, no ports or windows. The saucer does not rotate, but pulsing lights around seem to spin around its rim. It flies with great speed and makes erratic turns and maneuvers. The title and the opening credits roll, then this text introduction appears on the screen:

“Grateful acknowledgement is made to all the nationally recognized organizations and publications whose research and records have formed the basis for this story. To the more than 5,000,000 persons who claim to have actually seen Unidentified Flying Objects, no explanation is necessary. To all others no explanation is possible.” 

When Norwood lands, he describes the saucer to the flight control as, “Disk-like maybe 40 feet in diameter. Shiny, metallic.” However, there’s no proof; the UFO disabled ground radar, and they tell him all he saw was an illusion caused by a temperature inversion. Norwood is fired from the project, but tries to pursue the UFO independently, and it results in his friend being killed in a crash reminiscent of the tragic incident with Captain Mantell. We aren’t told that the UFO is hostile, but both incidents depicted show the saucer interfere with the flight of our aircraft, the second time with deadly results.

Sometime later, Norwood is summoned to the Washington, D.C. to meet Mr. Hank Peters of an unnamed US government agency with an office door marked, “Security Personnel Only.” Peters shows him a sketch that matches Norwood’s saucer and tells him it’s of a UFO was that was recovered in Red China and hidden in an abandoned church:

“It landed there… the bodies of two – uh – creatures were found nearby, human-like and yet different… The remains decayed very rapidly, and the peasants cremated what was left. …that thing could be so scientifically advanced as to make our technology obsolete and if the Red Chinese get their hands on it, the free world is obsolete.”

Peters recruits Norwood and two other civilians for the US team, and they parachute into China with the mission to clandestinely evade the Chinese Army to capture – or destroy the saucer. On the way to the UFO’s location, they encounter their counterparts, a team from the Soviet Union and they face each other with guns drawn.

Both teams are composed of scientists and technical experts but led by government men with a military agenda. It turns out the Soviets are also operating in secret, and the two teams reluctantly agree to work together for mutual survival, and to prevent the Chinese government from getting the saucer.

Cast from left to right: Bernard Fox (as metallurgist Dave Ephram), Bob Hastings (as electronics wizard Jack Garson), Lois Nettleton (as USSR electronics engineer Anna Karachev), Vincent Beck (as USSR metallurgist Zagorsky), Rico Cattani (as Comrade Dubovsky, Soviet team leader), Dan Duryea (as Hank Peters, USA team leader), and John Ericson (as test pilot Fred Norwood).

 

When they finally find the saucer, the scientists determine it is made from an unknown metal stronger than anything known. Entering the cabin, they find it full of consoles, screens, and instruments designed to be operated by human-like beings.

Portions of the dome are transparent, like four one-way windows, undetectable from the outside. There are no seats or restraints, and they decide the ship produces its own gravity field which allows the occupants to withstand the extreme maneuvers the craft performs. They briefly activate the propulsion and determine its technology operates by “universal lines of magnetic force.” The Russian metallurgist Zagorsky says:

“If we could utilize this principle, we could exploit literally limitless fields of energy. We could irrigate deserts, desalt oceans, increase production of food, of everything, one-hundred-fold.” 

Norwood, replies, “We could also manufacture one hell of a super-weapon.”

The Chinese army discovers their location and each team’s hawkish leader takes their men to (G-rated) war. Three of the teams’ members narrowly manage to escape with the saucer, but they lose control, and it flies into space. 

As it approaches light speed and heads for a crash into Saturn, working together they literally turn things around and return to earth, deciding no one nation should be given such power.

They head for neutral territory, and on the way, Fred Norton delivers the moral of the story:

“You know, when the world sees this ship, everybody's gonna have to realize there are other intelligent beings in the universe. They will have to meet them face to face one day. All the nations of this earth better be ready to stand together.”

The story was influenced by Silas Newton’s Aztec yarn depicted in Behind the Flying Saucers by Frank Scully, where landed saucers and dead crewmen were captured by the US military. 

Frank Scully and Silas Newton (seated).

Another element from Scully’s book is the magnetic powers source which can be used to provided free energy or used as a lethal weapon. The screenplay eliminates the aliens from the story and only the saucer itself is left as a technological mystery and prize for the nation who captures it. The final message is similar to that of the Contactees like George Adamski, that Earth’s nations should unite in brotherhood.

The Crash of a Flying Saucer Film

 The Bamboo Saucer is a little-known film that it was overshadowed by the release of two science fiction classics the same year, Planet of the Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film was produced by a minor studio, a low-budget B-feature exhibited mostly at drive-in theaters. While

The Bamboo Saucer has its flaws, it is worthwhile for how it examines some UFO concepts. It might be regarded as a classic if it had been completed in the 1950s alongside The Thing from Another World and The Day the Earth Stood Still. The screenplay was ahead of its time, but by the time it was filmed a decade and a half later, even television had been churning out saucer and alien stories for years.

The Bamboo Saucer was translated and issued abroad. In 1969 it was re-released, cut from 103 to 90 minutes under title Collision Course and later televised under that name.

The end of the 60s were bad for the UFO business in fact and fiction. On television, Star Trek was cancelled on Feb. 18, 1969, and months later Project Blue Book closed shop on investigating UFOs. Except for the Planet of the Apes franchise, not much was happening for science fiction and space films in the cinemas. It wasn’t until the mid-1970s, when a sf resurgence led to mainstream blockbusters like Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The Bamboo Saucer was either behind or ahead of the times. It’s worth picturing it as an anachronism, and with a healthy sense of wonder and imagination - for what might have been.

The original theatrical version can be seen at the Internet Archive or watched on YouTube.

The Bamboo Saucer

A Jerry Fairbanks Production

Writer/Director: Frank Telford

Original Story: Rip Van Ronkel, John P. Fulton

Photography: Hal Mohr

Special Effects: John P. Fulton, Glen Robinson, Deon Hanson

Music: Edward Paul

The American Film Institute site reports that one contributor died shortly before movie and another shortly after its release. “On 1 Jul 1966, in the midst of pre-production, writer and special effects man John Fulton died of a blood condition... The Bamboo Saucer also marked the final feature film role for Dan Duryea, who died of cancer on 7 Jun 1968.”

. . .

Special thanks to Ricky Poole for introducing me to this The Bamboo Saucer and the story behind it.

Sam Sawyer and the Flying Saucer Pirates

"Sam Sawyer learned …that the whole world was in grave danger! The threat came from the flying saucers. Two wrecked saucers had been recovered and found to be spaceships from another world!”

Thanks to Brian B. of the blog, What My Dad Saw, for his scans of Sam and the Flying Saucer Pirates. 

From the brochure, View-Master Reel List (early 1950s) PDF

Sawyer’s Inc. made View-Master, a viewer for "reels" sold separately, thin cardboard disks containing small transparent color photographs on film, seven stereoscopic 3-D pairs of images. The focus of View-Master was originally educational, and on travel and "cities of the world," but also included story reels for children based on things like fairy tales and cartoons. To achieve the 3-D effect, they used small clay sculptures and photographed the scenes with a stereoscopic camera. In 1950, they introduced “Adventures of Sam Sawyer.” Leland Green of Sawyers Inc. owned the character and series. 

According to J. Clement’s entry on creator Paul Sprunk at the View-Master Database:

“Paul Sprunk (1892 - 1963) was commissioned by Sawyer’s to create their own character, Sam Sawyer in 1950. He was never credited in the accompanying booklets. He had already worked on many Hollywood films as a miniature artist and had his own film studio.” 

“Adventures of Sam Sawyer” had six 1-reel stories, the first three released in 1950, then another group in 1951. The first and last reels featured Sam in space adventures.

1. Sam Flies to the Moon

2. Sam Finds a Treasure

3. Sam in the Land of The Giants

4. Sam in Darkest Africa

5. Sam in the Land of Ice

6. Sam and the Flying Saucer Pirates

 

The First Boy on the Moon

The stories were written for children, compact, short on details and characterization. As you’ll see in the opening line of “Sam Flies to the Moon,” it’s quickly established that our hero Sam is a scientist, inventor, and an intrepid explorer.

When Sam Sawyer finished his new rocket ship, he decided to fly it to the moon. Although the moon looked small and close at hand in the sky at night, Sam knew it was really a world in itself that circled the earth almost a quarter of a million miles away. He had often thought to himself, "If I were the first boy on the moon, maybe I would discover what kind of people live up there." Excited at the prospect of this, his most daring adventure to date, Sam loaded his ship, checked his space helmet and paralyzer gun, then climbed into his ship.

The titles for the seven scenes: 

1. Sam Sawyer enters his rocket ship. 2. Sam Leaves Earth for the Moon. 3.Sam Sets Foot on the Moon. 4. Sam Fights Moonmen with Paralyzer Gun. 5. Sam Struggles Hand to Hand with Moonman Leader. 6. Sam Surveys His Paralyzed Attackers. 7. He Rockets Back to Earth with Captured Moonman. 

Once he landed, Sam encountered the Moonmen, “strange man-like creatures. Their arms and legs were like metal tentacles, and their heads seemed to glow from within! Antenna-like projections served as ears and they carried short rods that emitted a weird red spark!” Sam was seen as a hostile alien by the Moonmen, and he used his paralyzer gun in self-defense. 

Sam decided to take (abduct!) the Moonman leader to Earth to show him that “we are not really monsters.” On the way, they become friends, and once there, “before he returned to his home on the moon, became convinced that human beings were, on the whole, decent peaceable people.

Sam Fights Moonmen with Paralyzer Gun

Sam’s first space mission had been for peaceful exploration, but not his second trip. He shot to kill, and the target was invaders in flying saucers. Before that voyage, a brief recap UFOs in culture circa 1950. 

In late 1949, writers Donald Keyhoe and Frank Scully both published flying saucer articles that were later expanded into bestselling 1950 book. Keyhoe’s book was based on documented events and speculation from military sources, which led him to proclaim in The Flying Saucers are Real that visitors from other planets were coming in spaceships and the US government was hiding the truth from the public. Far less credible was Scully’s Behind the Flying Saucers, based solely on the second-hand account of oil swindler Silas Newton. It was a whopper about wrecked flying saucers and the bodies of the little men found inside, captured for secret study by the US government. Together, these two books established a lore that has forever since shaped the public’s notions about flying saucers. Scully’s book was reprinted in paperback, giving it further exposure in 1951, just shortly before the release of Sam Sawyer’s flying saucer adventure.

Sam and the Flying Saucer Pirates

“Sam and the Flying Saucer Pirates” was reel 6 in the series.

Scene 1: From the story booklet: “Using secret information from the wrecked saucers,” Sam built a long-range radar-telescope to track the saucers’ point of origin, finding it be “Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our own sun.”

 

Sam's radar-telescope tracks a flying saucer.

Scene 2: Sam hopped into his spaceship and headed there. On his way, he spotted a saucer headed towards earth, so he blasted it to bits.

 

Atomic dischargers blow up the saucer from outer space.

Scene 3: Sam lands on their planet and finds a flying saucer factory, indicating they were gearing up to invade earth. Luckily, he thought to bring a bomb.   

Sam plants an H-time bomb at the flying saucer factory.

Scene 4: The Centarurians did not speak but communicated by “thought-waves” or telepathy. They carried weapons, rods that fired a red lightning-like ray that caused paralysis. Sam is abducted, and put in prison.

 

The men of star Proxima Centaruri paralyze Sam with ray-rods.

Scene 5: Sam had gone to their planet prepared for war, but when captured, tried to persuade them with thoughts of peace and friendship. It didn’t work. They’d been working for three centuries to construct a fleet to conquer earth, and they were launching the invasion soon.

The atomic blast rocks the planet.

Scene 6: Bodies of the wounded and dead lay outside the factory and saucer parts are scattered for miles.

Sam views the wreckage of the Centaurian space fleet.

Scene 7: On the voyage home Sam thinks about how he’s prevented war between the planets. Maybe someday, they’ll have friendship, commerce, and tourism instead.

Sam rockets homeward, mission accomplished.

 “Sam and the Flying Saucer Pirates” is a contemporary of the movies The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Thing from Another World. Each has its own take of flying saucer lore, but only in Sam Sawyer did we see a protagonist that was capable of thwarting the aliens’ attempt to dominate the earth. It's worth remembering, even if it was "only" a View-Master story.

. . .

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.”

Click here for enlargement

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.