UFOs: Contact in the Comics from 1964

Buz Sawyer was the daily comic strip created by Roy Crane in 1943 featuring the adventures of a heroic Navy pilot. When a Sunday comic strip was added, it was produced by Crane's assistants and featured a different storyline starring Rosco Sweeney, Buz Sawyer's comic sidekick. The Sunday strip was a comedy, mostly about Rosco Sweeney and his sister, Lucille, dealing with country life on the family farm.

A typical day at the Sweeney farm, 1963.

Al Wenzel's (Albert Borth Wenzel, 1924 -1995) art career took flight illustrating Superboy comic books in the late 1940s, and by the early 1950s he was producing cartoons for magazines and ghosting comic strips such as Will Eisner's The Spirit. In 1960, he became Crane's assistant on the Buz Sawyer Sundays, then took over producing the strip in 1962. Wenzel continued the premise and flavor of the strip, but in 1964, things got weird when a flying saucer turned up.

Robert Barrow, a long-time ufologist, sent us a note about some comic strips he'd saved:

After the Lonnie Zamora UFO report in 1964 all manner of newspaper responses showed up.  These are three separate weeks from the Sunday newspaper comics featuring the "Buz Sawyer" series by Roy Crane, and these involve "his pal" Rosco Sweeney.

We've shared the 1964 strips below, and Claude Falkstrom was able to locate some black and white reproductions of the other strips in the the series, along with a few of the final ones in color from UFOPOP. It looks like there was an earlier introduction, that may be missing, but otherwise the story looks complete. It's an interesting look at the attitudes of the time, from the public's view on Air Force UFO denials to the concern by witness that they'll be seen as kooks. As for the visiting extraterrestrial, he's a little green man from Mars.

 

  

The Dec. 1964 episode ended the flying saucer storyline, at least for a while. In March of 1968, the Martian made a return visit.

Thanks to Robert Barrow for sharing his original newspaper clippings from 1964. Check out Robert's work at UFO: The True Story of Flying Saucers 

James J. Allen's Alien Encounter Embarrassment: Aug. 6, 1952

West Lumberton, North Carolina, Aug. 6, 1952: A relatively incredible close encounter. James J. Allen sees a UFO and speaks to its occupant. A few historians summarize the case in passing, such as this mention in the August 2005 MUFON Journal by Ted Phillips, in "Physical Traces: Occupants and physical traces."

08/06/52 NC, Lumberton: James Allen, 51 , saw a round object 8 ft long, 6 ft high land within 10 feet of him. A small occupant was seen, and small footprints were found.

INTCAT, (the International Catalog of close encounters and entity reports, compiled by Peter Rogerson, lists the Allen case and cites Phillips among the other Ufologists who have covered the case:

August 6 1952. 2100hrs WEST LUMBERTON (NORTH CAROLINA:  USA) American Houses employee. James J Allen saw an object 2m high, 2.5m long, lit by an interior orange light, descend from the north-west, hit his chimney, damaging it, and land in his backyard. As he approached to within 3m. of the object he saw a small being, 75cm high, standing beside it. When Allen asked the being if it was injured, “it went away in a whiff”, then the object moved away with a whistling sound.

• Ted Bloecher citing Lumberton Robesonian, 7 August 1952.

• Phillips 1975, p.8 (case 676) says footprints were found at the site but this detail is not given in the above source he quotes.

• George Fawcett in Flying Saucers 77.

• Fawcett 1975 p.26.

• Santesson 1968, p.183

• Vallee Case 99 citing Wilkins 1954b, p.268 citing Buffalo Evening News 27 Aug 1952.

• Data Net V, 11 citing Robesonian 18 Aug 1952.

Loren Gross in UFOs: A History, 1952: August, however, found the events to be fantastic:

A forerunner of many to come was the tale told by 51-year-old James Allen of West Lumberton, North Carolina, on August 6th. So incredible it, was dismissed outright by serious people, the story and others like it were to be favorites with the press. We can only wonder if Mr. Allen was reading too many science fiction books? 

Here's the way the Allen's story was reported at the time in the local paper.
(A line of copy seems to be missing from the printed version.)

The Lumberton Robesonian (NC) Aug. 7, 1952

The next day's news provided further information. There were several people investigating the report, and the Pentagon was expected to launch their own inquiry. Further questioning of Allen produced further details on the encounter, including a better description of the saucer occupant. The little man had a long white beard.

The Lumberton Robesian (NC) Aug. 8, 1952 

UFO historian Loren Gross concluded:

Actually, there is not much difference between Allen's story and that of the Socorro, New Mexico, incident of April 24, 1964, so if people like Allen were making up such stories, they were at least consistent. In 1952 Allen's tale seemed too whimsical which people believing it was just the result of a capricious notion by its originator. There is a very good possibility the Allen story is a hoax for the simple reason there was publicity at the time about a similar incident which was supposed to have occurred months before at the city of Red Springs, an incident that could have inspired Allen. 

James J Allen's 1947 Case Surfaces

UFO historians that discuss the Allen case seem to be unaware of what happened after the initial report. Shortly after the story of the encounter, there were troubling disclosures about James Allen's past, instances of him writing "obscene letters," arranging a rendezvous with a married neighbor, and threatening to hex her husband with witchcraft if she didn't comply.

The Lumberton Robesian (NC) Aug. 11, 1952 

As with so many of the most interesting UFO cases featured here at The Saucers That Time Forgot, Project Blue Book has no files on this incident

Epilogue

History doesn't tell us if Allen's house was insured, but an ad for the Ray Hatch Insurance Agency in the November 11, 1953, Indiana Kokomo Tribune indicates he could have filed a claim for the saucer's damage to his chimney.

Unfortunately, the typical home insurance policy does not cover alien acts of aggression, only instances of alien accidents.


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First Flying Saucer Occupant Report, Published July 9, 1947

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.

Flying Saucer Ambush: Brush Creek, CA, 1953

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:

MAY 20, JUNE 20, 1953, BRUSH CREEK, CALIFORNIA, USA, JOHN B. BLACK AND JOHN J. VAN ALLEN

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.

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A special thanks to Louis Taylor of Information Dispersal for the original UP photo of Black and Van Allen.