An Unlikely Believer

Prostitution, crime, drugs, and homosexuality – these were the subjects of the first three books by Jess Stearn (1914-2002). Stearn was born in Syracuse, New York, and after graduating college in 1936, became a reporter for the Daily News, “New York’s Picture Newspaper.” His regular beat was reporting straight news, but in the Nov. 27, 1953, issue, he covered something uncharacteristically light, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Here’s his report on the flight of a balloon made by Goodyear Tire, one depicting an alien space invader with a disintegrator gun.

Photo by Nick Sorrentino

“As a sign of our times – the Flying Saucer era – the parade featured an inflated Space Man 70 feet tall and 40 feet around. Though held down by a score of men at guy lines, the Space Man almost whipped off into space by a brisk wind a couple of times as the kids screamed their enjoyment.”

UFOs were not his normal beat, but he wrote an epic 4-part article on the topic that we’ll cover later. Stearn wrote for the Daily News for 17 years, then in 1960 became a writer and associate editor at Newsweek magazine for a few years, leaving it to be a full-time career as an author of non-fiction books.

Jess Stearn, 1964 -& 1973

The Door to the Future

Back in 1952, by chance Stearn had met Maya Perez, a “sensitive,” who gave him a reading of his future. It meant nothing at the time but turned out to be the first step in his long transformation from skeptic into believer. As years passed, Stearn felt her predictions had come to pass. Researching soothsayers, he came to believe that some like Jeanne Dixon had genuine psychic powers. It resulted in his 1963 book, The Door to the Future. Even greater success came in 1967 with his best-selling biography, Edgar Cayce: The Sleeping Prophet. Afterwards Stearn’s writing focused on New Age and paranormal topics from Yoga to reincarnation, and he was a frequent guest on national television talk shows.

Paranormal books of all sorts were frequently displayed and advertised together, UFOs next to ESP, astrology, witchcraft, and the like.

Right, ad for Bantam Books' Paranormal selections.

Fate magazine ad July 1973

A Few Close Encounters with the UFO Topic

Stearn focused on internal mysteries and didn’t write about flying saucers and aliens, however, there were a few mentions. In Stearn’s 1972 book, The Search for a Soul: Taylor Caldwell's Psychic Lives, Caldwell said that during the Biblical end of days, super intelligent space beings would arrive to destroy the earth.

Stearn lectured on Edgar Cayce at a convention focused on psychics, ESP, and faith healers, PSI ’74, in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Aug. 2, 3 and 4, 1974. Their program included a token UFO guest, billed as “Charles Hickson, UFO witness." For more on the convention, see: PSI ‘74: Psychics and the UFO Witness from Pascagoula.

Sarasota Herald Tribune, July 21, 1974

UFOs surfaced again in Stearn’s 1980 book, The Truth about Elvis (1982 retitle: Elvis: His Spiritual Journey). The back cover said that Elvis Presley, “…believed in reincarnation, astrology, and UFO's…  Here is the largely unknown story of Elvis’ relationship with Larry Geller, his spiritual mentor…” Geller said that Elvis and his father Vernon had a UFO sighting once at Graceland. It reminded Vernon that on the night Elvis was born there had been an unexplained blue glow (that seemed to herald his arrival).

Stearn attended other conferences where UFOs were in the mix, such as the Whole Earth Expo at the Pasadena Convention Center, May 13 -15, 1988. A review from Pursuit magazine:

“…with holistic health, spiritual healing, channeling, UFO contactees and cases, psychic performances, reincarnation and meditation… at least a dozen speakers or shows going on at any one time…talks by Dr. Andrija Puharich, Budd Hopkins, Tom Bearden, Whitley Strieber, Linda Goodman, Ralph Blum, Timothy Leary, Jess Stearn, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Charles Thomas Cayce, Stanton Friedman, Bill Moore, Edith Fiore, Jack Houck, Brad Steiger, etc., etc…”

Stearn kept writing through the years and was interviewed about his latest book in The Jackson Hole Guide, Sept. 12, 1990. By the 90s, many of the psychic topics he’d been written about had been rebranded as “Remote Viewing.” Stearn’s last book was published in 1998, and he died at the age of 87. His obituary appeared in the Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2002. No mention was made of the time Stearn had written a series of articles examining the topic of flying saucers from other worlds.

 

Stearn’s 1959 Story on Saucer Cultists

Back in 1959, Jess Stearn had a lot to say about UFOs. His four-part article series appeared in the New York Daily News from July 13-16, 1959. Curiously, his well-researched, far-ranging examination did not mention two extremes, Contactee George Adamski or Donald E. Keyhoe of NICAP. Filling their roles was George King of the Aetherius Society, leader of an actual flying saucer region, and for contrast, members of Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York, advocating a scientific study of UFOs.

An overview of each article is provided below, including a picture of each page. Unfortunately, the photographs did not scan well, but the series also featured a great collection of pictures of saucer personalities. Readers may find better viewing of the articles collected into a PDF.

Spacenik Gold Mine in the Sky: Saucer Cults Draw Devotees and Dollars

Part one started off with a scathing skeptical tone.

“The impact of the flying saucer cult is not confined to crackpots and Mystics. It affects countless multitudes, living otherwise drab lives, who find a new interest in social status in the folderol of saucer research.”

However, Stearn pointed out there were reasonable people also interested in UFOs, like the representative of Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York who said that the hoaxers and hucksters were hurting serious study. “Their only interest in saucers is what they can get out of them.”

Much of the first article dealt with Contactees who had spoken at George Van Tassel’s Spacecraft Convention at Giant Rock.

Some of the views of the supposedly enlightened Contactees were racist even by 1959 standards. Backwoods Buck Nelson said, “When I was on Mars, the schools were all segregated, Negroes and white, and everybody was happy about it.” He went on to say that Jews, Negroes, and white Christians were grouped in separate areas on their planet. George Hunt Williamson claimed that Jewish leaders had formed a “Hidden Empire” of world rulers who were preventing the truth from being known about the space people.

The following people were interviewed or discussed in part one: Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York, Buck Nelson, George King, George Van Tassel, George Hunt Williamson, Howard Menger, Dan Fry, and Henry J. Taylor.

Blonde Venus in a Saucer: Some Dish

Part two focused heavily on George King of the Aetherius Society, who had been told by a voice from Venus that earth was headed destruction unless we returned to the teachings of “the Master Jesus, the Lord Buddha, Shri Krishna, etcetera" (who were all emissaries from Venus).

There was a bit on Truman Bethurum and his claim of meeting lovely space pilot Captain Aura Rhanes, and even a photo of the woman who claimed to be her. There was also a description of Buck Nelson’s saucer enterprise in the Ozarks.

Bird? Plane? Saucer? Only a Pingpong Ball

Part three had skeptic Jules St. Germain tell how he’d tricked George Van Tassel into “confirming” a hoax. It also delved into Van Tassel’s many outlandish claims -- and the fortunes he collected from donors. The saucer investment schemes of Otis T. Carr were discussed, with some input from Long John Nebel.

Sane & Some Some Still See Saucers

Part four took on a tone sympathetic to witnesses. The story of George Wilson was told, a pilot with 20 years of experience who became a witness and “believer” in UFOs as something beyond earthly technology. Stearn summarized the position of the Air Force. Isabel Davis of Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York thought it was ridiculous for the Air Force to deny saucers when they had so many unexplained reports. Their policy had clashed with the reports of pilots like Peter Kilian of American Airlines, who had witnessed three bright saucers and so had 35 of his passengers.

Long John Nebel speculated that “the so-called spacemen” acted like they were working undercover, perhaps exploiting the gullible, and could be “enemy agents.”  

Stearn noted, “From believing in flying saucers, it sometimes is only a step for some saucer addicts to believe in spacemen -- a belief stemming more from their own insecurities, psychologists say, then from anything in the sky.”

The Second Life of Jess Stearn

After his examination of the flying saucers, Jess Stearn rejected the topic, concluding it was full of phonies and fakes, and insecure people who needed something to believe in. Yet somehow, he came to strongly believe in something perhaps more intangible, psychic powers. As an advocate of reincarnation, Stearn wanted no funeral; he believed he would live again. If so, he was given another chance to evaluate the case for UFOs in his next life.

Arthur C. Clarke and the Magic of UFOs

 

Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917 – 2008) was a scientist who became the world’s most famous science fiction author, best remembered for writing 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clarke’s influence is enormous, but today we’re focusing on one single phrase.

Arthur C. Clarke himself helped associate the phrase with UFO. He had a letter published in Science magazine, Jan. 19, 1968, correcting a reader who had erroneously attributed a quote by him to Isaac Asimov. Clarke offered the comment: “Meanwhile, Clarke's Third Law is even more appropriate to the UFO discussion: ‘​Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’"

 Science magazine, Jan. 19, 1968

Clarke had a long-standing interest in UFOs, and while visiting the USA in 1952, he looked into the flying saucer issue. 

His 1963 essay “Flying Saucers” for the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society explained why he changed his mind. 

“Before going to the United States in the spring of 1952, I believed that flying saucers probably did not exist, but that if they did, they were spaceships. As a result of meeting witnesses whose integrity and scientific standing could not be doubted, and discussing the matter with many people who had given serious thought, I have now reversed my opinion. I have little doubt that Unidentified Aerial Objects do exist – and equally little doubt that they are not spaceships! The evidence against the latter hypothesis is, in my opinion, quite overwhelming...”

Clarke appeared on the Long John Nebel radio show in February 1958 and told of his own many UFO sightings, which all turned out to be identified or explainable. The discussion revealed a depth of his knowledge on the topic, including the books by Keyhoe, Menzel and Ruppelt. Clarke was open to the idea of visits by extraterrestrials, but he thought that reports of flying saucers had nothing to do with it. “Most of the confusion on this subject is caused by mixing up two entirely separate things. One, UFOs. I think UFOs probably exist, and the other, so-called flying saucers, which are vehicles, definite vehicles, which are a totally different thing, and which don’t exist.”

Clarke’s 1959 book, The Challenge of the Spaceship devoted an entire chapter to showing that reports of unidentified flying objects were mostly due to misinterpretation, but he was optimistic about space travel. “If you keep looking at the sky, before much longer you will see a genuine spaceship. But it will be one of ours.”

In the summer of 1968, 2001: A Space Odyssey was in theatres. Time magazine, Friday, July 19, 1968, featured the article, “Science Fiction: Latter-Day Jules Verne,” a profile of Arthur C. Clarke. The article quoted the “the three premises of which Clarke bases all his writing, fiction and nonfiction alike,” since known as Clarke’s Laws:

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

"The only way to define the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible."

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

One week later, that quote about magic was first used in to promote UFOs. On July 29, 1968, six scientists spoke at the "Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects" held by the United States government’s House Committee on Science and Astronautics. 

Dr. James E. McDonald said during his testimony:

“If we were under surveillance from some advanced technology sufficiently advanced to do what we cannot do in the sense of interstellar travel, then, as Arthur Clarke has put it quite well, quoted in Time magazine the last week, we have an odd situation. Arthur Clarke points out that any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic. How well that applies to UFO sightings.”

The United Press news coverage of the Symposium repeated it for the newspapers:
“McDonald said if the earth was being watched, it was being done by a society so advanced that its technology ‘would be indistinguishable from magic’ to earthmen.”


Indistinguishable from Magical Thinking

Clarke’s Third Law has since been quoted far and wide in everything from science fiction to computer programming discussions. It also became a fixture in UFO discussions.

In the textbook for the U.S. Air Force Academy, at Colorado Springs, Colorado’s third year Physics course, Introductory Space Science, Volume II, chapter 33, “Unidentified Flying Objects.” The Fall Quarter 1970 edition included this passage under the section, “Hypotheses to Explain UFOs.”

“Advanced terrestrial technologies (e.g. test vehicles, satellites, reentry phenomena, secret weapons). The noted space scientist Arthur C. Clarke has observed that any sufficiently advanced technology will appear indistinguishable from magic. Thus advanced terrestrial technologies are certainly the cause of some reports.”

Coral and Jim Lorenzen of APRO cited the phrase in their 1976 book, Encounters with UFO Occupants, saying, “…we may conjecture that we are ‘dealing’ with a very old and incredibly experienced galactic culture which has crisscrossed the vast spatial seas for probably thousands, perhaps millions, of years in starships that, to us, are ‘indistinguishable from magic’ (A.C. Clarke).”

In The UFO Verdict: Examining the Evidence by Robert Sheaffer, 1981, he quoted Clarke, adding, “But from this it does not follow that all reports of magic represent artifacts of some advanced technology.”

Almost from inception, the phrase has been used and abused to the point of cliché. Clarke’s law was intended to open the imagination, not to be cited as justification for superstition, or to serve as dogmatic mantra for anti-science beliefs. Clarke’s second law is a better motto for ufology:

The First Several Saucer Solutions of 1947

In the weeks following the historic UFO sighting by Kenneth Arnold, many explanations surfaced for the reports of flying saucers. This was spoofed in a cartoon in the July 7, 1947 edition of The Times Record from Troy, New York:

The Times Record, Troy NY, July 7, 1947

The explanations offered ranged from the serious to the silly. STTF's Claude Falkstrom has collected some of the most notable ones from the summer of 1947.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 28, 1947

The Tennessean Sun, June 29, 1947 

The Vought  XF5U-1 "Flying Flapjack?" 

Daily News, July 5, 1947

The Montana Standard, July 5, 1947 

Atomic Experiments?

The Independent Record, July 6, 1947

Mass Hysteria?

Dr. Steckel v. Dr. Overholser

Two psychiatrists gave their conflicting opinions on saucers, Dr. Harry A. Steckel v. Dr. Winfred Overholser on flying saucers as mass hysteria:

The News-Press, (Fort Myers, FL)  July 7, 1947

Remotely-piloted Missiles, Corpuscles?

The Mexico Ledger, July 7, 1947, The Evening Sun, July 7, 1947

Optical Illusions and the Power of Suggestion?

The Milwaukee Sentinel, July 7, 1947

Meteors, Birds or Reflections? 

The Ottawa Journal,  July 7, 1947,  Tampa Bay Times and The Evening Sun, July 9, 1947

Airborne Radioactive Waste?

The Daily Courier, July 10, 1947

Grain Silo Reflections?

 The Sentinel, Carlisle PA, July 9, 1947

Several Silly Suggestions:

The Weekly Acadian, July 10, 1947

Entoptic Phenomena?

Tampa Bay Times, July 13, 1947

Fear-Inspired Folklore?

Messenger-Inquirer, July 20, 1947

Associated Press Science Editor, Howard W. Blakeslee wrote a long article on how the flying saucers might be a "new folklore in the making":

The flying disks are probably the first of a series of aerial puzzles, with others to come, in the opinion of Dr. J.L. Moreno, New York... Men have been seeing things like flying disks for centuries. Now these apparitions have a new meaning and some of them a new dreadfulness. 

The full text of the article can be found at Saturday Night Uforia, "in the news 1947," look for the story, Seeing of Saucers in Flight Is Phenomenon of Current Fears

Industrial Waste?

The News Palladium, July 30, 1947

The Saucers That 1947 Forgot

By August of 1947, the flying saucer sensation was over, and the topic was spoken of in the past tense. The Gallup Poll asked "What do you think the saucers are?" After months of conflicting explanations, no one could be sure, but of the respondents who thought saucers were real, the top answer was military "secret weapon."

Aug. 15, 1947

When saucers were discussed, the idea lingered that the UFOs could be a secret military weapon, but there was no consensus on who was flying them.

The Soviets thought they were ours.

St. Clair Chronicle, Aug. 23, 1947

Oregon Representative Harris Ellsworth got word that behind the saucers story we might find a rocket from Russia.

The Freeport Journal-Standard, Dec. 22, 1947

Stories of saucer sightings, and various explanations from the credible to the crackpot variety, continued to make good copy. The newspapers continued to provide stories about flying saucers for their curious readers. It didn't much matter to the newspaper editors what was being seen, or whether it was real; saucers were news, and they sold news. 

Astronomer Arthur L. Draper on The UFO Mystery

Arthur L. Draper (R) and two Buhl Planetarium visitors

Arthur L. Draper was an astronomer and the the director of the Buhl Planetarium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1940 until the time of his death in 1967. In that role, he was often asked to comment about UFOs, and was quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 2, 1947. His professional opinion was that people were misidentifying things in the sky due to the contagion of excitement over flying saucers. 

"From our experience, we have found that one person can claim to have seen a phenomenon and countless other people will immediately 'see' it also. It is the power of suggestion."

Nevertheless, Draper  encouraged people to keep looking, and to be interested in what could be discovered in the night sky. In 1950, Draper put together a program put for the planetarium, "The Mystery of the Flying Saucers," and a short article appeared in The Pittsburgh Press accompanied by a stunning UFO illustration by Nat Youngblood.

The Pittsburgh Press July 2, 1950

Thanks to Luis Taylor the UFO researcher behind Information Dispersal, who sent of scans of the planetarium's flyer for Arthur Draper's presentation, "The Mystery of the Flying Saucers."

Draper's program was a big success and ran weekly from July to September of 1950.

The Day Before Roswell, July 7, 1947: Between Something and Nothing

The day before the news about a recovered flying disc in Roswell, New Mexico, the newspapers were chock full of saucer stories, and many papers featured a cover photo of Jane Campbell displaying a Rawin target, scooping Mac Brazel and Jesse Marcel.

Madison Wisconsin State Journal, July 7, 1947

May Be "'Saucers' -- Near and Afar

Jane Campbell, 17, of Chillicothe, Ohio, exhibits an unidentified mechanism which fell from a balloon and landed on her father's farm. The father, Sherman Campbell, said the vaned object, through optical illusion, may have caused some of the reports of "flying discs." 

An Estimate of the Situation

The Fort Madison Evening Democrat from July 7, is a great example of early UFO news coverage. The UP story combines wire reports of the real and unreal, in an attempt to cover the emerging phenomenon. The confused position of the newspapers seemed to echo that of the military.

"We're not dismissing the possibility that there's something to it, and we're not dismissing the possibility that it's all a hoax."- Captain Tom Brown, Army Air Force spokesman, Washington, DC. 

Carnival searchlights, Ghost Rockets, the Loch Ness Monster and much more:

Fort Madison Evening Democrat, July 7, 1947

The barrage of conflicting stories in the news kept the public interested- and confused. In the absence of facts, speculation and rumor were king, and in those days, many UFO legends were born.

Real Life Comics #55, Jan. 1951