Robert Coe Gardner (Feb. 3, 1914 – Nov. 13, 1990) is
one of the many Ufologists that Time Forgot, one of the few that advertised himself
as “Formerly of the U.S. Air Force.”
Gardner’s profile appeared with his article, “Flying
Saucers: The World's Greatest Wonder” in DePauw Alumnus Nov 1, 1953,
where he also wrote:
“During the last war I was in the Air Force, trained in aircraft identification and construction, and I was raised in Dayton, Ohio, called the home of aviation. Consequently, when trained experts began to report these unconventional round aircraft, I began to take notice and do a little research on the subject. Then in August of 1952, my wife and I saw two of these craft at rather close range in the daytime, and I determined then to devote my full time to research on the subject. My science lectures gave way to ‘saucer’ lectures and to a six-month research and lecture tour, including many points in Europe, from which I have just returned.”
In 1955 respected researcher Leonard Stringfield endorsed
Gardner saying, “… he is available for lecturing. Gardner, world-traveled and
well informed on the UFO, has lectured to Air Force groups, universities. and
clubs. He features with his talk, motion pictures showing UFO's which he
upholds are real.” Decades later, historian Jerome Clark described Gardner in Fortean
Times, Aug. 2017 as "an obscure yarn-spinner... who occasionally surfaced
on the fringes of the early UFO scene, always with a whopper at the
ready." So, was Gardner sincere - or
a sensationalist? Let’s look at the evidence.
A Phenomenal Lecturer
Robert Gardner said his UFO interest began in 1949
after reading Donald Keyhoe’s article and subsequent book, The Flying
Saucers Are Real. Prior to that he was a science lecturer, but period media
accounts reflect things differently, more in a metaphysical vein. The Virginia
Beach News of June 1, 1951, described Gardner as being “director of the
Universal Studies Forum of San Francisco,” in town to deliver the lecture, “Your
Place in the World of Tomorrow" for the psychic group, Edgar Cayce’s Association
for Research and Enlightenment at their twentieth annual Congress. The next month
he was back home in San Francisco, lecturing at the Christian Spiritualist Church
on “Frequency and Vibrations in Relation to Spiritism.”
The San Francisco
Examiner, May 17, 1952, reported that Gardner had taken a new
job with Dr. George Carter, a practitioner of magnetic healing, saying, “this
week (Carter) announced the addition to his staff of Robert Coe Gardner… a
metaphysical lecturer and teacher, is popular with audiences throughout the Bay
area.” During this time, Gardner supposedly conducted a “world-wide research
trip on flying saucers.” Redlands Daily Facts, Aug. 25, 1952, carried
the report of Gardner’s own saucer sighting while on a picnic with his wife.
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UP's more detailed version from an unidentified paper. |
Around the time of his sighting, Gardner dropped the
metaphysics business and put together some stage props for a new career. The
first documentation we could find of Gardner’s UFO lecturing was from Ohio in
the Dayton Daily News, November 2, 1952, a television show notice:
“Bob Gardner formerly of Dayton and now of San
Francisco will appear on two WLW-D shows Tuesday as an amateur flying saucer expert.
He will guest on ‘Dayton and the Nation’ at 11:45 a.m. and the ‘Coffee Club’ at
1:30 p.m.”
The Chico Enterprise-Record, Aug. 4, 1953, reported on the upcoming lecture by Gardner at the Chico Art Club, “Flying Saucers: What They Are and Where They Come From.” By late 1953 Gardner had established a reputation as a professional UFO lecturer, touring across the United States and abroad.
On November
10, 1953, Gardner spoke at the Lansing (Michigan) Econ Club on "What Will Science
Do in the Next 25 Years?" His lecture covered: “cinerama, flying saucers, phenomena,
latest uses (of) atomic power, submarine and air craft, the new astronomy, new
discoveries in the realm of the human mind and the future of radio and
television.”
In Los Angeles, The Daily News, Nov. 26, 1953,
carried a notice:
“Lecturer Robert Coe Gardner will consider that ever intriguing
subject, matter, “Are Flying Saucers From Outer Space?” in three lectures, 8 p.m.
Dec: 3 and 4, and 2 p.m. Dec. 6 at 1629 N. La Brea Ave. The lectures, sponsored
by Flying Saucers International, headed by Max B. Miller, 19, student of the
saucer problem, will be illustrated with what Gardner says are actual motion
pictures of flying saucers in flight.”
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The Daily News, Dec. 7, 1953 |
The Daily News,
Dec. 7, 1953, featured an article, “Flying saucer fever mounting,” discussed
Garner and his lectures saying, he “identifies himself as ‘formerly of the Air
Force,’ but becomes rather vague when it comes to his job and rank in that
noteworthy organization.” As for the evidence he shared:
“Gardner produced a magazine photograph, purportedly
snapped in Germany, showing one of the ‘little men’ in company with an
admirably casual group of earthlings. ‘I believe this photograph to be genuine,’
stated the lecturer, unimpressed by the little fellow’s startling resemblance
to a skinned gibbon. In addition to wooden models and artists' conceptions of
saucers… Gardner’s lecture was advertised as being illustrated by a ‘documented’
film. This turned out to be largely movies of witnesses describing what. they
had sighted, ‘authorities’ telling what they think and film clips of still
photographs of blobs in the sky.”
Gardner’s “little men” photo was originally published in the 1950 April Fool’s Day edition of the German magazine, Neue Illustrierte, with the title “Der Mars-Mensch” (The Mars Man).
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Neue Illustrierte,“Der Mars-Mensch” |
It was a crude photomontage: a
man in a skater’s costume portraying the Martian, composited into shot of two
men and women. Due to the support of Gardner and other credulous or opportunistic
ufologists, the Martian photo fake has been circulated as genuine alien photo
for decades. See Kentaro Mori’s site for an excellent article on the “Silverman” hoax,
The FBI/KGB/SS Alien Photo: Found.Robert Gardner personally investigated at least one UFO case
in California, the Brush Creek Saucer series of close encounters. From “Saucer Fails to Land At Brush Creek,” in the Chico Enterprise-Record,
July 23, 1953:
“John Van Allen and John Q. Black (told) Robert C.
Gardner of San Francisco the tale of the flying saucer that landed seven times
on a sandbar at the junction of Marble and Jordan Creeks. The last time it
landed, a four-foot man dressed up in ‘the snuggest outfit you ever saw’ emerged
and scooped up a pail of water from the Marble Creek, Black said. Gardner, who
claims that saucers are occupied by ‘beings of a sort,’ said he visited the miners
‘to find out what this is all about, as nearly as I can.’”
Uncharacteristically, Gardner had a skeptical outlook
on the encounter. Gray Barker in his 1956 book, They Knew Too Much About
Flying Saucers, “as far as the Brush Creek episode was concerned, he
believed Black and Van Allen had experienced a ‘psychic aberration’ which ‘resembled
a mirage'.”
In his column for Aug. 5, 1954, "Criswell Predicts,"
the psychic said, "Flying Saucers Fans: Robert Coe Gardner of San Francisco
will soon make a most important announcement!" There’s no record of that happening,
but M.K. Jessup’s 1956 book, The
UFO Annual reported that after a June 1955 lecture at the auditorium in San
Jose, California, saucer buff Bill Raub questioned Gardner, who under pressure,
claimed to have “talked to several men, including doctors, who actually
examined ‘little men from cracked up saucers in Mexico'."
An Alleged Disclosure Delayed from 1953
One of Gardner’s enduring contributions to UFO lore is
the quote he allegedly obtained from General Benjamin Chidlaw during a March
1953 meeting.
It was first disclosed in C.R.I.F.O. ORBIT by Leonard
Stringfield, November 4, 1955. The statement described how he met General Chidlaw, then in charge of US continental air
defenses at Ent Air Force Base in Colorado:
"Out of courtesy to General Chidlaw, who has
since retired, I have withheld until now the vitally important information
herewith revealed. In the course of the half hour private interview the General
mentioned, among many other interesting items, the following, “we have stacks
of reports about flying saucers. We take them seriously when you consider we
have lost many men and planes trying to intercept them’.”
That issue of ORBIT also contained “Violence in
Retrospect,” a tale from Gardner about a possible 1939 UFO incident, a military
transport plane with thirteen men that came back from a seemingly unearthly battle
will all aboard dead or dying. The story has gone on to become cited as evidence
of both human mutilations and gremlins, and he was quoted in Charles Berlitz's World
Of Strange Phenomena, 1988. In his 2003 book, Strange Skies: Pilot
Encounters with UFOs, historian Jerome Clark had this to say about Gardner
and his story: "There is no evidence that anything like this ever happened
in real life... Gardner, a minor figure on the early UFO scene, had a
reputation as a spinner of yarns and a shader - at best - of truth.”
A contemporary discussion of Gardner’s credibility can
be found in Jim Moseley's book, page 82. On Dec.16, 1953, Mosely met with Al
Chop, the former public information officer for the UFO topic at the Pentagon, and
Ed Ruppelt, former head of Project Blue Book, having retired from the Air
Force, just a few months previously. Moseley asked them their opinion of UFO
authors Frank Scully and George Adamski, but the men laughed and described them
as having a “questionable reputation.”
Moseley wrote:“This prompted Ruppelt to bring up a Robert Coe
Gardner, who was lecturing in California and wowing his audiences with claims
he had received secret information and previously unreleased photos of saucers
from high-level government contacts, proving UFOs were from outer space. If possible,
Ruppelt and Chop considered Gardner to be even lower than Scully and Adamski.
Chop said he'd known Gardner for years, as they'd both grown up in Dayton,
Ohio. It turns out that when confronted by the air force, Gardner admitted he'd
clipped his ‘unreleased photos’ from newspapers! The man had also once
told Chop that Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, former chief of staff of the air force,
had told reporters off the record that the saucers were from space. Both Chop
and Ruppelt dismissed this claim as nonsense…”
The Robstown Record,
April 1, 1954, published a front page of three winged flying saucers over their
main street.
A few months later, The Robstown Record
(Texas), Jun 17, 1954, reported on a letter from Gardner asking to buy a copy
of their saucer photograph, him falling for another April Fool’s Day hoax.
An Examination of Gardner’s Retail Ufology
At the time Gardner began lecturing there were only a
handful of UFO books, and lectures were a popular way for the public to get
some combination of entertainment and education. Gardner’s lectures were a curious
mix of gullibility and skepticism. He presented himself with an air of
authority, a science lecturer with a military aviation background. Like the Air
Force, he insisted that the vast majority of saucer sightings were misidentified
conventional objects, but he claimed remaining 10 to 20% included real flying
saucers from the US, the UK and the USSR, who had all discovered antigravity
and were flying saucers, he thought. These were not as advanced as the other
kind, the ones flown by visitors from within our solar system, and most likely from
beyond as well. The aliens were peaceful, he said, perhaps here to monitor our maturement
as a civilization.
Gardner seemed to accept some element of truth to
every saucer story he ever heard, and he was a supporter of Frank Scully’s tale
of a captured disk and little men from space hidden by the US military. He said
he believed there had been genuine saucer contact cases but thought people like
Orfeo Angelucci and Truman Bethurum were sincere, but subjected to a
"psychological expectation” that affected their recollection.” In other
words, it was mostly in their head.
Chances are that anyone coming away from Gardner’s lectures
agreed with some of what he said, but probably ignored the parts they didn’t
want to hear, a bit like with a horoscope or a palm reading. After the show was
over, there was the chance to buy UFO literature and photos. At his one of his lectures
for the Redondo
Beach Woman's Club, the local paper reported:
“During the talk Gardner (1) handed out cards
announcing his next series in Hollywood, (2) plugged two books and a number of
pictures he had for sale, (3) collected names and addresses from the audience so they could be notified of future available
literature.”
One such saucer photo for sale was said to be taken by
Joe Kerska Oct. 10, 1956, in San Francisco. Gardner sold copies of the picture
by mail and probably at his lectures. It was featured on the cover a of a few
saucer newsletters and Ray Palmer’s Flying Saucers from Other Worlds, August
1957, carried an article by Gardener, “The San Francisco Photo.”
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The photo was featured on the covers of George Van Tassel's Proceedings of the College of Universal Wisdom Feb/Mar 1957, and Max Miller's SAUCERS Spring 1957. |
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From the archives of Louis Taylor |
NICAP’s 1964 book, The UFO Evidence concluded: “The
alleged UFO strongly resembles a small model at relatively close range, thrown
into the air and photographed… the photograph is considered dubious.”
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Another dodgy saucer photo sold by Gardner. From the archives of Louis Taylor. |
A Model Ufologist
For his lectures, Gardner constructed small saucer models, and some saucer-shaped model planes that could actually fly. In addition, he claimed he his props demonstrated principles of antigravity propulsion.
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The Statesman Journal, (Salem, Oregon), July 11, 1957 |
The Vancouver Sun (British
Columbia, Canada), Aug. 1, 1957, “quoted Gardner as saying, “From what I’ve
found, the spacemen who have landed here are small, smelly and greenish in color.”
He went on to say, “We have evidence from people all over the United States who
have seen little green men alight from space ships.” He also said a little
green man, 27 inches high, was captured near Mexico City in 1950.
Max Miller of Flying Saucers International
interviewed Gardner on September 14, 1957. This is rare 40-minute recording is
the only known media surviving of Gardner, and he covers a lot of ground
fielding Miller’s questions about his background, beliefs and thoughts on the
UFO topic and his experiences lecturing on it. Gardner discusses his meeting with
Donald Keyhoe and Arthur C. Clarke, also hints about having insider contacts at
Wright Patterson Air Force base. He also discusses his own sighting and those
of others and the topics range from contact to antigravity and dimensional energy.
It’s a fascinating sampling of saucer thought circa 1957. Hear the recording hosted
of interview hosted on YouTube: Max Miller interviews Robert Coe Gardner
Leaving UFO Show Business
By late 1957, Gardner was still at it, but playing small venues to and a diminishing audience.
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The Hollywood, CA Citizen-News Dec. 7, 1957 |
The Long Beach, CA, Press-Telegram, Dec. 15, 1957, was one of the few skeptical articles to challenge some of Robert C. Gardner’s claims. Asked about his Air Force experience, “Gardner said he was in service two years during World War II. What rank? Very confusing, he said. The Air Force had him pretend he was a civilian. But what was his rank? Major, he said finally.”
Perhaps due to the glut of UFO authors and Contactees on
the lecture circuit, Gardner’s audience seemed to be shrinking. At his mid-December 1957 lecture at the YWCA auditorium with a capacity of 200, only 32
people attended. When Gardner took the stage, he apologized for “this record
small audience.”
In his press, Gardner claimed to have pioneered the concept of UFO clubs back in 1949.
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The San Mateo Times, June 23, 1958 |
On July 21, 1958, Gardner spoke for another small
crowd at the UFO Study Group of Redwood City, CA, on “the spiritual aspects respecting
the ability of UFOs to appear and disappear.” Up until the end, Gardner was still
circulating the Silverman “Martian” photograph. Note the metallic flying saucer
model he’s holding in the photo below. Also shown, a ticket to a Gardner 1960 UFO lecture at Carmel, CA.
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Robert Coe Gardner photo via Joe Fex/APE-X Research, Ticket via UFOPOP |
One possible reason for Gardner's stepping back from the UFO business comes from the Utah Washington County News, Jan. 29, 1959. They reported that a group of California men had purchased the Virgin oil refinery, and “Robert Coe Gardner of San Francisco, president of the corporation plans to spend part of his time in the area.”
The last documentation we have of Gardner speaking on saucers comes from a tape and photos from his lecture in October 1964 at a high school auditorium in Walnut Creek, near Oakland, California. The photos below were taken by Paul Cerny, and are shared from the NICAP and CUFOS archives courtesy of curator David Marler. Gardner seems to have been fading from the
saucer scene, but there was an unfavorable mention of him in NICAP's
Affiliate / Subcommittee Newsletter, May 28, 1965, which featured Richard
Hall’s top “Five Most Wanted List” of crackpots harmful to the credibility of
the UFO topic.
“Robert Coe Gardner. Lecturer on UFOs using films of dubious origin, by personal admission “making a living” off the subject. Totally undiscriminating in choice of materials; likely to try link himself with NICAP for prestige purposes. No connection with NICAP, but makes use of ‘The UFO Evidence.’ Bears watching. Based in San Francisco.”
Apparently, Gardner had already begun focusing on other
things. By 1965 he was regularly lecturing on nutrition, frequently on, “What
Is Necessary for Complete Health.”
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Healdsburg Tribune, Aug. 12, 1965 |
There’s not much documented about Gardner’s Utah oil
corporation, but it was not successful. The Vernal Express, Sept. 14,
1967, reported that the Uintah County Sheriff was conducting a sale of Gardner’s
oil refinery equipment to pay off debts to creditors.
One peculiar semi-paranormal bit with Gardner seeming
to return to roots, in a 1974 Edgar Cayce inspired book by Paul James, California
Superquake, 1975-77?: Scientists, Cayce, Psychics Speak. “After fifteen
years of seismological research, Robert Coe Gardner, M.A., of San Francisco has
constructed a map - chronology which shows the following serial catastrophes as
he foresees them… (stock market crash, apocalyptic earthquakes in San Francisco
and Los Angeles).
The catastrophes did not go as predicted, so in 1976
Gardner was advertising himself in the San Francisco Examiner, offering the
following services: “Lecturer, Prayer Counseling.”
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The San Francisco Examiner, Aug. 28, 1976 |
Advertisements indicate Gardner mainly spoke on the topic of wellness and nutrition. The last ad found was from 1985
in Los Angeles, where was still lecturing on "Essentials for
Complete Health."
Robert Coe Gardner died of cancer in 1990 at the age of
76.
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The Ukiah Daily Journal, Nov 15, 1990 |
Gardner has been largely forgotten by ufology, his name mainly a footnote in connection with the alleged quote from General Chidlaw and the legend of the 1939 mysterious aerial attack on the military transport plane. For better or worse, Gardner was an influential pioneering lecturer spreading both facts and folklore of flying saucers to the public at the grass
roots level.
Over two decades after his death, a book connected with his name was published,
Psychic Phenomena and the Ductless Glands. The 18-page booklet seems to
have been a lecture by occultist by Manly Palmer Hall, published with an introduction
by Robert Coe Gardner. It was probably a remnant from his metaphysical days at
the beginning of the 1950s before he became a flying saucer expert.