Ray Bradbury and George Adamski: Worlds Apart

In 1952, an imaginative author ran into a flying saucer lecturer at a science fiction convention. In a different time and place, perhaps they could have been the best of friends. here's what happened instead.

The Man for Mars

Ray Bradbury grew up reading about spacemen like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, loving fantasy and science fiction. In 1937 at the age of 17 he met Forrest J. Ackerman, joined a club and became involved in fandom writing for (and publishing) fanzines until making his first professional sale in 1941. By the late 1940s, he was a family man and an established author. A snapshot of Bradbury’s career highlights from Current Biography Yearbook, 1953:

“He has had 170 short stories published and twenty-three radio dramas and five television plays produced…with imaginative themes which combine advanced technology with subtle fantasy and have what has become known as ‘the Bradbury twist.’ His stories were first published in science fiction and fantasy magazines… [then the mainstream] Collier's, Saturday Evening Post and the New Yorker. … His most recent work, The Golden Apples of the Sun, is the fourth of his published books, the others being Dark Carnival (1947), The Martian Chronicles (1950) and The Illustrated Man (1951). … He has also done much writing for the moving pictures… Of Bradbury's prolific output Punch (August 1952) has written: ‘"It is hard to speak with restraint of these extraordinary tales which raise Ray Bradbury to a secure place among the imaginative writers of today.’"

 

A Friendship with a Flying Saucer Author

In the summer of 1950, Ray Douglas Bradbury (1920-2012) was thirty years old. That was when he met Gerald Heard (1889-1971), a science fiction author twice his age, who was interested in the paranormal, UFOs, and many other unconventional subjects. In the 2011 book, Becoming Ray Bradbury, Jonathan R. Eller described how they became good friends:

“In spite of Heard’s growing eccentricities… he offered Bradbury more than his passion for Eastern philosophies. Bradbury was not drawn to Heard’s beliefs, but he was drawn to his [talent, intellect, and personality].”

From the slightly re-titled US edition.

Heard’s book The Riddle of the Flying Saucers: Is Another World Watching? was published in the UK later that year.  In 1951, Heard was a founding member of the group Civilian Saucer Investigation of Los Angeles (CSI), the first UFO organization with a board of scientific and aeronautical experts. Riddle also lectured on saucers and revised his book for the 1953 Bantam paperback edition, adding two new chapters on recent sightings. This all goes to show that Bradbury had a trusted friend who was knowledgeable on the UFO topic, but Ray had no desire to be any part of it.

However, in the Imagination April 1951 science fiction magazine, Bradbury’s "In This Sign..." appeared, a UFO story of sorts about anomalous aerial spheres of blue light, later revealed to be sentient beings. The story was later retitled "The Fire Balloons." For a closer look at this from a historical UFO perspective, see: Ray Bradbury's Orbs from Mars at Blue Blurry Lines. 

 

The Man for Venus

In 1952, two rising stars crossed paths, a young science fiction author and an aging flying saucer lecturer. Although they had much in common, the two were sharply divided about their opinions on the reality of alien visitors. It happened at the fifth annual West Coast Science Fantasy Conference, which was held June 28-29, 1952, at the U.S. Grant Hotel in San Diego.

Ad from Science Fiction Advertiser, July 1952

"Sou-Westercon" was a major convention sponsored by the San Diego Science-Fantasy Society. Their guest of honor was author Ray Bradbury. It was considered a curiosity or quirk, but Bradbury chose not to drive a car or fly on an airplane. That’s why he travelled from his home in Venice, California, to the San Diego convention by train.

Anthony More’s report on the convention in Shangri-LA (newsletter of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society) #32, Fall 1952, said Sou-Westercon was, “the largest fan group ever assembled, and included the largest professional collection ever brought together at one time at a fan affair.” He noted that Ray Bradbury was supposed to give the opening remarks, but didn’t arrive on time (possibly his train was delayed). The convention started without him, the first of their schedule problems.

The 4-page program for Sou-Westercon was chiefly their directory of the events, but there was also a page featuring an ad for the booklet “Ray Bradbury Review.” Another unconnected ad below it was for “Cosmag S-F Digest,” which included an illustration of two flying saucers zipping through space.

Most of the speakers covered topics related to science fiction, but one talk was a bit different. The lecture for Saturday at 1:30 pm was “a discussion of The Flying Saucers” given by “Dr. Adamski.” 

FATE Magazine, July, 1951.

That was George Adamski (1891-1965), before his greatest claim to fame and bestselling book. (See: The Professor's Message from Space.) At that time, Adamski was an obscure figure, lecturing on flying saucer and selling the photographs he claimed to have taken of them. The convention report wryly mentioned Adamski’s presentation in passing:

“The ubiquitous flying saucer then wheeled into view, and a scattering of fans listened to a ‘Dr.' Adamski, who competes from the foot of the hill with Palomar Observatory, tell about that unusual form of iron known as carbon.”

It’s not documented how long it lasted or exactly what he talked about, but the lecture was scheduled to last 30 minutes. In other appearances around the same time, Adamski spoke about saucers as coming from our neighboring inhabited planets and displayed (and sold) his photos. Adamski sometimes talked two hours longer than planned, so he’d likely have run past his half-hour given the chance.

Ray Bradbury arrived from the train station while Adamski was lecturing, and on the way into the hotel he encountered some people who’d walked out on the talk. (We’ll hear his recollection of that later.) We don’t know how much of the lecture Bradbury saw or if he spoke to Adamski, but he was left with an unfavorable impression. After the convention, both Adamski and Bradbury both went on to greater successes, and both were the subject of much media coverage. As far as we know, they never crossed paths again.

 

It Came from Outer Space

Universal-International hired Ray Bradbury to come up with the story for a 1953 science fiction movie to be filmed in 3-D. One of their working titles was “The Atomic Monster,” but Bradbury resisted the idea of writing about monstrous flying saucer invaders from outer space. 

The 1953 United Press interview promoting It Came from Outer Space mentioned that the author was opposed to riding in a plane, then discussed his taste in films.

“Bradbury also is anti those science fiction movies in which the visitors in the flying saucers are usually villains. He approves of ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still,’ which featured a robot who was a hero. But in ‘The Thing,’ he complained, the man from another world started out believable but wound up as a monster.” Giving away the plot, in his film, an alien who landed here would just seek “to get away safely before somebody got panicky and killed him.”

Instead of space invaders, Bradbury’s aliens were not hostile, just visually repugnant to humans.. Their motive was only to repair their damaged ship and resume their voyage. Still, the studio sold the movie as being about a spaceship that “carried terrifying beings from outer space [who] planned to conquer the world…”

Trailer: It Came from Outer Space

Meanwhile, George Adamski had also been busy. It's possible that when the skeptical audience bailed on his 1952 convention lecture, he decided that talk and photographs were not enough. On November 20, 1952, Adamski claimed to have encountered a flying saucer and spoke to a man from Venus, and it was backed by photos, physical evidence, and multiple witnesses. The fantastic story gained traction in the press, and became the subject of a best-selling 1953 book, Flying Saucers Have Landed (coauthored with Desmond Leslie).

The Los Angeles Daily News, Oct. 19, 1953, carried two side by side ads featuring authors Bradbury and Adamski.

The 1960s

The UFO controversy had a resurgence in the 1960s, but Bradbury seems to have avoided taking part in public conversation on the topic. Bradbury wrote an article for his friend Forrest J. Ackerman in the Warren magazine Spacemen # 8, June 1964, discussing his favorite science fiction films, among them: “The Day the Earth Stood Still strikes me as a fine attempt to speak to mankind today about its problems on Earth.” Bradbury didn’t mind flying saucers as fiction, he was more concerned with a good story.

In 1967, the paperback collection, Man Faces Extra-Terrestrial Life In Contact edited by Noel Keyes listed Bradbury’s name first and reprinted his 1951, story, "The Fire Balloons."

Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1963. Contact, 1967.

George Adamski went on to write two more books about his series of interplanetary adventures. Despite being exposed as a fraud, he still had devoted followers when he died in 1965 at the age of 74.

1970s: Close Encounters

Bradbury was quoted in “’Saucer Cults’ Reread Bible in Light of UFOs” by Russell Chandler in the Los Angeles Times, Sept. 8, 1974:

“Religion and science are always circling each other,” he said. “It's like flesh and skin. There is a continuum between the two… The deep gap between them is just talk. But Bradbury, who believes “humanoid creatures like us” could exist on other planets, added that both science and religion “deal in ignorances,” and that theory is, in fact, faith. “We need to hang loose on this,’ he concluded. ‘There is always the danger of a new quack religion forming, but we need to allow this to proliferate in a free society.”

The 1976 reprint of Ralph and Judy Blum’s 1974 Bantam paperback book, “Beyond Earth: Man’s Contact with UFOs,” carried a cover blurb from Ray Bradbury stating: “We have needed a new, comprehensive UFO survey for many years now. … This is that book.”

Bradbury didn’t care for flying saucers, but he was deeply moved by Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. His loving review, “Opening the Beautiful Door of True Immortality,” was published in The Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1977 (Reprinted in the UK magazine Starburst, March 1978). He had nothing to say about the UFO lore in the film, just focused on what he felt was the true message:

“The great truth it teaches is that human beings, no matter what their shape, size, color, or far star-country of origin, are on their way to Becoming, Deciding to Be, deciding to travel in order to stay, deciding to live rather than dooming themselves to graveyard pits on separate worlds.”

Interviewed for the Jan. 12, Merv Griffin show, Bradbury talked about his love of Close Encounters: “I've seen it twice and cried both times…it's a very emotional experience, a very beautiful one...it's probably the most important film of the last 20 years.”

When Bradbury was a guest on the Tonight Show on March 1, 1978, host Johnny Carson asked him about UFOs and alien contact:

“The fascination lately of course with... Star Wars, Close Encounters… where people become involved again in reported flying saucers, what's your personal observation?"

Bradbury evaded the question, saying, “I'm very open. I think we you have to keep your mind totally open…” He later hinted at his true position by saying we had begun exploring space and “that we're going to be the Martians from here on in...” Carson persisted, “Do you feel personally that we are being observed? A lot of people believe that… if that's so, why don’t [aliens] contact us?” Bradbury mentioned the possible bacterial or cultural concerns, then gave his real answer. 

“I don't really think they're that close to us at this point, but I think that we'll make the contact… We can't travel fast enough right now… it will be possible, let's say 200 years from now, to make it to Alpha Centauri at almost the speed of light.”

1980s: A Saucer from a Martian Hoaxer

To promote the 1983 movie adaptation of Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, a version was produced for radio. It was narrated by Orson Welles, notorious for The War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938. Bradbury was unhappy with the script changes, but rewarded afterwards with a nice memento when Welles, “handed Bradbury the reading script with a hand-drawn flying saucer inscribed, ‘For Ray from his admiring friend, Orson.’” From Bradbury Beyond Apollo by Jonathan R. Eller, 2020

 

The Turn of the Century

The debate about aliens and UFOs got a boost in 1996 when scientists reported possible evidence of cellular life in an ancient meteorite thought to originate on Mars. The Los Angeles Times, Aug. 8, 1996, article stated there was a prominent non-believer:

“It’s ridiculous,” said author Ray Bradbury, whose Martian Chronicles painted a far more vibrant picture of Martian life. “They don’t have any proof. They’re not even sure [the rock] came from Mars. It’s a theory.” Bradbury compared the announcement to claims about UFOs and mysterious crop circles. He doesn’t believe it for a minute. “It’s stupid,” he said.

Ray Bradbury suffered a stroke in 1999 that left him with many physical problems. While his memory was dimmed by age and illness, he was still sharp and continued to work. During his final years, Bradbury spoke about UFOS and aliens several more times. Jim Cherry interviewed Bradbury for Arizona Republic August 31, 2000 (reprinted in Conversations with Ray Bradbury, Steven L. Aggelis, editor, 2004).

Cherry: “What do you think of alien visitors and UFOs?”

Bradbury: “No such, no way. It's ridiculous; there's absolutely no proof anywhere, at any time.”

Ray Bradbury wrote the foreword for the 2001 book, The Complete War of the Worlds: Mars' Invasion of Earth from H.G. Wells to Orson Welles. Entitled, “H.G. Wells, Master of Paranoia,” and it included a passage to the UFO topic:

“Wells and Welles prepared us for the delusional madness of the past fifty years. In fact, the entire history of the United States and the last half of the twentieth century is exemplified beautifully in Well's work. Starting with the so-called arrival of flying saucers in the 1950s, we've had a continuation of a mild panic at being invaded by creatures from some other part of the universe. It started with that alien professor who sold hot dogs with saucers of Invaders at the foot of Mt. Palomar. It then ravened up the years with half-baked sightings to end in Roswell and while true believers who claimed they never met a bug-eyed monster they didn't love.

Dr. Hynek disagreed, and he was the expert on flying saucers hitting the fan, having started the Center for UFO Studies. People said yes to his truths but snuck off the next day to Bide-a-Wee Martian Shoals in California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

The myths proliferated, all the way from the friendly beasts that invaded Meteor Crater in my It Came from Outer Space to the incredible mothership landing in firework illuminations in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. God reaching down to judge Adam's upstretched hand.

So the invasions will never cease. Or, not until we landfall Mars, build towns, and become friendly invaders to the universe. We will arrive in peace, and hopefully go with God.”

Ray Bradbury only mentioned Roswell in passing, but he recognized the story as something that had been manufactured by UFO mythmakers. In 2003, Bradbury had a heated exchange with Paul Davids, the producer of the 1994 Roswell TV movie. Bradbury was “an arch skeptic,” according to Davids, who said the disagreement happened at a Hollywood luncheon: 

“When he heard that I had made Roswell he started yelling at me! He started attacking me! Saying ‘what are you doing making a piece of fiction like that and trying to pass it off as something that’s true?’”

The last documented comments by Ray Bradbury on UFOs take us full circle. In 2009, Jeff Krulik filmed an interview of Bradbury, whom he found “still gracious and full of life and big ideas.” Almost as an afterthought, Krulik asked him, “Do you believe in UFOs?” In a hyperbolic reply, Bradbury said that George Adamski “invented” UFOs, blaming him for the popularity of the belief in them as alien spaceships. Bradbury described arriving at the 1952 Sou-Westercon:

“I went down [by] train to go to the science fiction convention in San Diego… in the U.S. Grant Hotel… people were rushing out… ‘We're leaving… [a] man that has a hot dog stand at the base of Mount Palomar, he's talking about some flying saucers… He's a nut, stupid nut.’ So I found out that... it was a complete lie that he made up… and people believed him. I talked on various radio shows and TV shows and told people not to listen… they asked me about that, I said, ‘Go talk to that hot dog salesman, it's a complete lie.’”

Ray Bradbury died on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91. The Los Angeles Times obituary for Bradbury quoted his view on his writing:

“I’m not a science fiction writer. I’ve written only one book of science fiction [Fahrenheit 451]. All the others are fantasy. Fantasies are things that can’t happen, and science fiction is about things that can happen.”

Bradbury viewed flying saucers from outer space not as science fiction, but as fantasy.

. . .

 

This article is an offshoot of a project that began years ago, “Science Fiction vs. Flying Saucers,” examining the opposition of many of the field’s authors to beliefs about UFOs. If you’re interested in seeing more on this topic, please let us know in an email or comment.

 

CE3K Trivia: George Adamski’s Revenge?

Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind presented a story based on a potpourri of events, concepts, and legends from UFO lore. Spielberg had scared moviegoers with Jaws, and all the advertising for CE3K was dark and menacing, telling us to “Watch the Skies,” and that “We are not Alone.” For most of the movie, the mystery of the UFOs is treated as menacing, but in the final act, the Mothership lands we learn that these ancient and technologically advanced aliens were peaceful and benevolent. Except in appearance, just like George Adamski’s space brothers.

Lost TV Classic: The Flying Saucers

 

This article, like many at The Saucers That Time Forgot, started with a question.  Finding a listing from a television anthology series from 1950, one of the first dramas written about UFOs, we asked: What was "The Flying Saucers?"

The plot almost sounds like it could have been an episode of a later show, Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone: Peaceful extraterrestrials in saucer-shaped spaceships contact a prominent scientist on earth via telepathy. They are in search of a new home for their people. The scientist carries the news to the world, but he’s thought to be mad. Then comes the twist ending.

What makes this story important was when it was told. Only a few months earlier, Donald Keyhoe’s article in True magazine had been released, “The Flying Saucers are Real,” which got the public seriously considering that maybe aliens from space were here. It was before any science fiction television anthology shows or any major motion picture featuring aliens in flying saucers. It may have been the first serious treatment of contact with aliens on television, and it’s notable that instead of invading space monsters, the extraterrestrials were depicted as intelligent and peaceful.

 

The Hands of Destiny

Hands of Murder was a crime and suspense half-hour dramatic anthology television series from the DuMont Television Network. It aired from 1949 to 1952, later retitled Hands of Destiny. Created by Lawrence Menkin and written by him in partnership with Charles Speer, the series was performed and broadcast live. Unfortunately, no known recordings of episodes survive.

1950 Radio Annual

The series was described at The Retro Set, “Monstravaganza:Classic TV Horror!” by Terence Towles Canote: 

Hands of Murder debuted on 7 October 1949 on the DuMont Television Network… [It] was produced on a shoestring budget and aired live. In fact, according to Tim Brooks and Earle F. Marsh in The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable Shows: 1945-Present, Hands of Destiny was notable for its lack of sets and props. Lighting and camera angles were used to suggest the setting. Despite the low budget, Hands of Destiny received sterling reviews from critics, with even Walter Winchell praising its camera work.”

The show’s co-creator Lawrence Menkin is more well-known for his role in launching the DuMont program, Captain Video and His VideoRangers, the first science fiction television series on American television. It ran from 1949-1955.

Hands of Destiny departed radically from its standard format of depicting crime stories in an episode by Menkin and Speer concerning contact with UFOs.

 

The Flying Saucers

The Hands of Destiny episode, “The Flying Saucers” was originally broadcast on April 28, 1950, and it was shown again or rerun in some areas in June. The episode listing as presented in the Press-Telegram (Long Beach, CA) Wednesday, June 7, 1950:

“9:30 - KTLS - Viewer imagination will determine whether the drama, “The Flying Saucers” is fact or fiction in tonight’s edition of "The Hands of Destiny." A man is thought to be a lunatic when he claims to be contacted by visitors from outer space, but a surprise ending clears him of the charges.”

It wasn’t just any man. He was a scientist, one that closely resembled Albert Einstein.

Bruno Wick starred as the scientist.

Below is a clipping of the review of “The Flying Saucers” by June Bundy from Billboard, May 20, 1950, followed by the complete text.

Billboard, May 20, 1950

Hands of Destiny

Reviewed Friday (28), 8-8:30 p.m. Sponsored by New York Chevrolet Dealers' Association thru Campbell-Ewald via WABD, New York. Director, Frank Bunetta. Writers, Lawrence Menkin and Charles Speer. Music, Lew White. Cast: Bruno Wick, Ruth White, James Maloney, Richard Sanders, Ray Mulderick, Frederick Draper.

Hands of Destiny is the new monicker for the Charles Speer-Larry Menkin Hands of Murder program, and the title switch, which considerably broadens the show's script scope, coincides with the series' bow as a co-op show under local sponsorship of the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut Chevrolet Dealers' Association.

In line with the public's current fetish for science fiction, last Friday's drama centered around flying saucers. The space yarn provided a natural showcase for the series' unique camera technique, which integrates lengthy line-up of short terse scenes into a smooth whole, via multi close-ups and unusual technical effects.

It seemed that the whirling disks represented an attempt by visitors from space to contact earth's most intelligent inhabitant, a thinly disguised version of Dr. Einstein. Utilizing mental telepathy (the saucer face was literally made of light and invisible to human eyes), the disks told the professor they were looking for a world to call home, and earth was being screened for the honor. In spite of their lack of substance, tho, the saucer set was darned choosy and ultimately decided to by-pass war-torn earth in favor of another planet location. By that time Joe Public had labeled the professor a crackpot, so he and his wife joined the saucer safari into space.

Ingenious Production

Production-wise the airer was easily one of the most ingenious dramas ever staged on video. Parts of the script were unnecessarily padded with trite melodrama, but the story struck sparks with its opening shot of shimmering space, a pulsating "talking" light ray effect and a powerful close-up of the professor's distorted face at the climactic point of "brain contact" with the light men. Unfortunately, tho, with the exception of Bruno Wick as the professor and Richard Sanders as the "voice of a flying saucer," all acting wasn't on a par with the production.

The Chevrolet commercials followed a varied pattern, including a conventional-type film clip of new models and an imaginative animated take-off on the headless horseman. The latter was positively pun-happy. (i.e. "I lost my head over Chevrolet… I flipped my lid over the service…. and you get a head with Chevrolet.")

June Bundy. 

Based on the review, we can see that the script by Menkin and Speer had some interesting concepts percolating about flying saucers. The next year, we’d see similar ideas explored in Hollywood movies. Among them was the notion that aliens were peaceful while our world was far from it. Such an idea was at the heart of the classic 1951 film Day the Earth Stood Still, where a flying saucer landed with a warning from space. Klaatu sought the help of “the smartest man on earth,” physicist Dr. Jacob Barnhardt, played by Sam Jaffe, whom reviewers noted was “obviously based on Prof.  Albert Einstein.”

The Day the Earth Stood Still - Sam Jaffe as Prof. Jacob Barnhardt

The UFO episode of Hands of Destiny was a bold departure from the series usual storylines and the favorable review from Billboard may have proved to the television industry that the public had an appetite for flying saucer programming.

. . .

For more on Albert Einstein and UFOs in fact and fiction, see:

Einstein, the Evangelist and UFOs

Crashed Flying Saucers and the Hydra Club

Caption: Fletcher Pratt and the Roswell UFO crash via The X-files

In January 1950, newspapers reported the autopsy of small extraterrestrial bodies from a flying saucer captured by the U.S. government, information from insiders, “confidential sources” disclosed via a reputable journalist and military expert. Ufologists later cited the report as credible supporting evidence of Roswell and other crash-retrieval cases. Who leaked the story, and how?

Fletcher Pratt Wonder Stories Quarterly, Winter 1932

Murray Fletcher Pratt (1897-1956) was a prolific author, primarily of naval and military history. He was also famous for his science fiction and fantasy, frequently written in collaboration with L. Sprague de Camp.

Fletcher Pratt bio from Modern Science Fiction 1953

A UFO crash opened one of Pratt’s early science fiction stories, an alien encounter story written fifteen years before the flying saucers of 1947.

Amazing Stories Quarterly, Winter 1932

“A Voice Across the Years” was a novella published in Amazing Stories Quarterly, Winter 1932, by Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher Pratt, illustrated by Hans Wessolowski. Two men see a “meteor” crash into a lake and go to investigate. There, they eventually meet and befriend an extraterrestrial shaken from the crash of his “cometary car.” The spaceship is irretrievable, so they assist the alien in construction of a new one. Just as it’s finished, the police come to capture him. In an unintentional abduction, one man is trapped inside the ship as the alien takes off for another world.

Thirty years later, the story was edited and expanded by Pratt’s widow, Inga, and published as the 1962 book, Alien Planet. Cover artist Ed Emshwiller depicted the alien’s circular spaceship with a flattened appearance, making it look very much like a flying saucer.

Astounding Oct. 1954 - SF Book Club ad

In the early 1950s Fletcher Pratt was among the top science fiction authors, and  a member of an elite network of professionals sharing common interests.

The Hydra Club

In October of 1947, a group of professional science fiction writers and editors founded a group in New York, calling themselves the Hydra Club. The founding members included: Lester del Rey, David A. Kyle, Judith Merril, and Frederik Pohl. Lester del Rey described the early days at his The Way the Future Was blog:

“There were nine of us. The mythological Hydra was said to have nine heads. That was good enough, so we called it The Hydra Club and began beating the brush for members. In the process of inviting all the area’s sf writers and editors whose addresses we could locate, Fletcher Pratt was one of the first we reeled in. He was a key recruit. We original nine of course knew all the book and magazine editors, and most of the writers, in the area. Fletcher knew everybody else…”

Besides Fletcher Pratt, they were later joined by more than forty others, including: L. Jerome Stanton, Hans Stefan Santesson, Willy Ley, Isaac Asimov, Theodore Sturgeon, and L. Sprague de Camp. The group’s early history was chronicled in Marvel Science Fiction Nov. 1951, by Judith Merril, with art by Harry Harrison:

Founding member David A. Kyle wrote "The Legendary Hydra Club" for Mimosa 25, April 2000. The group held monthly meetings at the homes of members or in a rented hall, and once hosted a convention, “the famous New York Science Fiction Conference of July 1-3, 1950, sometimes known as the 'Hydracon'. …Over 300 authors, publishers, scientists, and interested spectators attended. … Life magazine covered the event and [published a] panoramic picture of the assembled diners at the banquet.”

Life magazine May 21, 1951

The photo was included in “Through the Interstellar Looking Glass” by Winthrop Sargeant was a look inside the world of science fiction fandom. It also discussed the “rumpus that rocked the world of science fiction—the Shaver hoax… The deros were responsible for... catastrophes, from shipwrecks to sprained ankles... for the reports of flying saucers." 

Hydra Club members were serious about their science fiction but skeptical about things in popular culture they considered unscientific: Dianetics, Velikovsky, Atlantis, reincarnation and so on. They’d groaned at Ray Palmer presenting the Shaver Mystery tales as true in Amazing Stories, and to them, flying saucer mania was cut from the same cloth. At club gatherings, these pseudo-scientific topics could be the target of criticism, jokes, or satire. 

Photo from “Review: The Compleat Enchanter” by Phil Sawyer

Kyle wrote, “A Hydra Club meeting was always a party… The biggest and best” was held in 1949 on New Year's Eve. Several reporters were present, and their stories on it appeared in the press, including The New York Times. One reporter present was from the French international news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP). His story focused solely on a talk given by Fletcher Pratt, and it appeared in French in Var-Matin République, Jan. 1-2, 1950, and in the English language daily newspaper in Rangoon, Burma, The Nation, Jan. 2, 1950. 

“Flying Disc” Visitors From Strange Planet

Bodies of 3-Foot High “Strange Creatures” in American Hands

New York, December 31. -- The American newspaper man, Fletcher Pratt, a former U.S. war correspondent, today claimed that contrary to recent official announcement, flying saucers were not a product of the imagination but visitors from another planet.

Speaking at a meeting sponsored by science magazine, Fletcher Pratt said that according to “confidential sources”’ one of such flying discs together with its occupants -- all of them dead --had fallen into the hands of American authorities. These visitors from another world were killed, Pratt said when their flying disc entered the atmosphere of the earth. Atmospheric pressure proved fatal to them and their bodies were now being dissected and studied, he claimed. Quoting the same source, Pratt said the interplanetary travelers were “strange creatures”. -- AFP.

Var-Matin République, Jan. 1-2, 1950 (transcribed by Patrice Seray)

The Nation, Jan. 2, 1950 

Amazing if true. Let’s see what other reporters made of the speech. 

Weird, Astounding

At the end of 1949, spaceships and aliens were headline news due to the release of True magazine’s article by Donald E. Keyhoe, “The Flying Saucers are Real.” Also, Hollywood gossip columnist Frank Scully had published two Variety articles late in the year (based on the claims of Silas Newton) about the U.S. military’s capture of flying saucers and the bodies of the little aliens inside. At the Hydra Club’s holiday party for 1949, Pratt spoke on the topic of saucers. Here’s an account, co-written by one of the club members, “Weird, Astounding” in The New Yorker, January 21, 1950, page 19, by Jerome Stanton and John McCarten: 

“We were invited down to Werdermann's Hall, on lower Third Avenue, the other evening to attend the annual party of the Hydra Club, an outfit composed of writers of science fiction... Fletcher Pratt appeared on the platform and made a speech about flying saucers, which he branded a big fake. He was followed by Mr. [Willy] Ley, who told a story about the footprints of an aardvark being mistaken for those of a dinosaur and expressed agreement with Mr. Pratt's conclusion as to flying saucers. A man about five feet tall interrupted the proceedings at this point, screaming ‘Leave the saucers as a matter of faith!’ "That's Lester del Rey," a gentleman next to us said. "One of the best in the field."

The New York Times Jan. 2, 1950, discussed the party, but only in business terms, “Science fiction has made incredible progress in the past two decades, graduating from the pulp magazine era to its modern respectability of hard-cover books…” There was no mention of saucers.

The Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University houses the Fletcher Pratt Papers; his correspondence, manuscripts, scrapbooks, and memorabilia. Hoping to locate the text of Pratt’s 1949 flying saucer speech, I contacted the SCRC librarian. Nothing was found about crashed flying saucers or the talk: “No speeches of any kind, unfortunately, and definitely not one from the Hydra Club party.” It may have been that Pratt’s saucer talk that night were no more than impromptu remarks. 

This AFP’s sensational saucer story was given a one sentence summary in the 1980 book by Charles Berlitz and William Moore, The Roswell Incident, along with these comments:

“This further reference to a Roswell-type incident was, of course, denied in official circles with the customary vehemence. However, it must not be forgotten that Fletcher Pratt was a reputable military historian with a historian's regard for the highest possible accuracy of information and therefore would have been reticent to accept a report dealing with startling information from an unreliable source.” 

With the conflicting news accounts and the interpretation by Roswell crash authors, one might wonder where Fletcher Pratt really stood on the phenomenal topic. 

Mechanix Illustrated June, 1951 

Scientists had announced that life was probable throughout our galaxy, and in “How Scientists Visualize the REAL Flying Saucer Men,” Mechanix Illustrated checked with a couple of science fiction authors. John W. Campbell said, “There is every reason to suppose that life on Venus, or on any other planet, if it has developed to a high level, has taken human form. But this form would have to conform to the specific conditions of the planet.” Fletcher Pratt played along but reasoned that if it were possible, “any life form there must be completely different from ours.”

In Saturday Review, March 14, 1953, Pratt gave a favorable review of Flying Saucers by Donald H. Menzel.

“Among the many answers are mirage, auroral phenomena, formations of ice crystals in the upper air, sun dogs, moon dogs. reflections of earthly objects or the moon on layers of mist... In other words, almost anything but little green men from Venus or educated bees from Mars. It is rather a pity that a good scientist had to take time from his work to clear up this clotted nonsense, but now that he has done it we can all be glad he did. And it certainly makes good reading.”

The Hydra Club on UFOs, and Little Green Men from Afar

Fletcher Pratt was a key member of the Hydra Club. He died of cancer in 1956 and his obituary was published in The New York Times, June 11, 1956

(Full text) http://www.northofseveycorners.com/write/pratt.htm

According to Dave Kyle, the Hydra Club faded away sometime in the 1960s. Both before and after the club’s demise, several members had some things to say on the topic of UFOs.

Lester del Rey was a frequent Panelist on Long John Nebel’s Party Line radio show, and wrote “The Saucer Myth” in Fantastic Universe Aug. 1957.

Frederik Pohl informally investigated the 1964 Lonnie Zamora case in Socorro, NM, and wrote a skeptical UFO editorial about it, “Air and Space” in Worlds of IF Sept. 1965.

L. Jerome Stanton wrote a skeptical UFO book, Flying Saucers: Hoax or Reality?, 1966.

Hans Stefan Santesson edited Fantastic Universe magazine where he frequently featured non-fiction articles by ufologists.

Willy Ley frequently discussed UFOs skeptically and took the negative side of the debate against Ray Palmer in 1950. He also slammed saucers on the CBS talk show, Longines Chronoscope, Aug. 4, 1952.

Isaac Asimov wrote a favorable review of Flying Saucers by Donald H. Menzel in Galaxy Science Fiction July 1953, and closed by saying, “My own personal use for it will involve braining with its edge the next innocent who says: ‘But don’t all science-fiction writers believe in flying saucers?’”

L. Sprague de Camp also gave a positive review of Menzel’s book, for Science Fiction Quarterly, November 1953, saying, “As an old debunker, I can tell you that one of our species’ odder characteristics is that they will pay much more to be bunked than to be debunked.” Two decades later, L. Sprague de Camp wrote “Little Green Men from Afar'' as a lecture for the conference where the notorious Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, CSI was founded, "The New Irrationalisms: Antiscience and Pseudoscience," April 30-May 1, 1976, at the State University of New York at Buffalo. His lecture started by discussing the same topic as Fletcher Pratt’s 1949 speech Silas Newton’s flying saucer hoax. Then he turned to the broader issue: 

“The story of pseudoscientific cultism, of which the enlighteners in UFOs form but one small part, is depressing to believers in human rationality. Some cultist ideas… are so absurd that they beguile few followers and soon fade away. Others attract huge followings and persist for generations.” 

Theodore Sturgeon reviewed two UFO books in Galaxy science fiction magazine, Nov. 1974, saying:

“My personal opinion on the whole subject… is that yes, there are UFOs, and no, I have no opinions as to what they are, where they come from, or why, being perfectly content to wait for further evidence — ‘hardware or bodies,’ as the late Fletcher Pratt used to say.”

Fletcher Pratt became a footnote in UFO history for making fun of flying saucers at a Hydra Club party. All because someone didn’t get the joke. 

. . .

 

For Further Reading 

Fletcher Pratt, Military & Naval Historian by Henry Wessells )

L. Sprague de Camp’s “Little Green Men from Afar” was published as an essay in The Humanist, July/Aug. 1976. In recognition of his lifetime achievement, de Camp was awarded the Grand Master Nebula of 1978 by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Editor Frederik Pohl chose de Camp’s essay to represent his work in the 1980 book, Nebula Winners Fourteen, and it also was presented in two other collections:

The Fringe of the Unknown, by L. Sprague de Camp, 1983

The SFWA Grand Masters, Volume 1, edited by Frederik Pohl, 1999