Reward: $1000 for Proof that Flying Saucers Are Real!

Flying saucers may not have become a big news item if not for cash rewards. Kenneth Arnold's sighting in June 24, 1947 was an unexpected by-product of him searching for a crashed Curtis Commando R5C military transport plane that carried a reward of $5,000 for the finder. Arnold struck out, but in the aftermath of his UFO sighting, several parties put forth rewards for evidence that the flying saucers were real.

(The text in the clipping below is tiny, but it's it's the headline that's important, and the detail from it shown below.)

Berkeley Daily Gazette, July 8, 1947

Three Rewards of $1,000 each for flying saucer proof from:

• E.J. Culligan, Illinois businessman.
• Spokane Athletic Round Table (a group of gangsters?)
• World Inventors Congress (catch: offer expires in five days.)

"For a thousand dollars almost anyone will describe a flying saucer, and that is just what is happening today. E. J. Culligan — a Chicago industrialist — offered a reward for a flying saucer or a correct explanation of the celestial discs. Now he is being swamped by hundreds of letters and telegrams — all claiming to have the inside information on the saucers."

The Neosho Daily News from Neosho, Missouri on July 11, 1947

The Spokane Athletic Round Table wanted a saucer itself, delivered in person.

WallaWalla Union Bulletin, July 8, 1947

The World Inventors Congress also provided reward for a saucer, and the word was getting around. People started to come forward with claims.

On July 9, The Ceylon Observer reported: 

"Meanwhile, the World Inventors Congress has offered a thousand dollars reward for the delivery of a 'flying saucer' to their exhibition at Los Angeles this week.
      Concrete evidence too has not been wanting, so far three reports of 'discs' or parts of discs being reported.  While one discovery reports a "flimsy construction" with material "some sort of tin foil," another speaks of diecast metal an eighth of an inch thick melting only at a heat of 6,300 degrees, and third speaks of 'rock-like metal' which rained down from a huge flying disc."

The Concrete Evidence

"Flimsy construction" and "tin foil" was from the balloon crash at Roswell found by Mac Brazel.

Warrant Officer Irving Newton identifying the Roswell tin foil.

"Diecast metal" was Lloyd Bennett's (disappointing) lawn discovery.

Fayette County Leader
July 10, 1947

"Rock like metal" was just common terrestrial slag from the Maury Island hoax by Fred Crisman, Harold Dahl and Ray Palmer.

August 1947 Tacoma Times

Stay Tuned

The cash rewards helped feed the 1947 public's saucer fever, and in the days and weeks to come, many more people would come forward with stories and claims of the recovery of crashed flying saucers. This serves as a teaser to a recurring series here at The Saucers That Time Forgot, tentatively titled, "Captured Flying Saucers," coming soon to this very screen.

Coming Soon!

© 2017, Curt Collins 

Desmond Leslie, George Adamski, and Ancient Aliens

George Adamski and Desmond Leslie, authors of Flying Saucers Have Landed, 1953.

Magazine advertisement

George Adamski had a series of UFO sightings, but became a major flying saucer celebrity after the release of his 1953 book, Flying Saucers Have Landed, where he told the story of encountering and communicating with Orthon, the pilot of a landed extraterrestrial spaceship. Better still, he had an abundance of evidence: multiple witnesses, physical traces and photographs! He later took movies of the saucer and continued to have contact and adventures with the visitors from space and share their message of peace and love with the people of Earth. 

(For the story on how Adamski's claims were challenged, see 

Saucer News Presents: The George Adamski Exposé

Orthon's spaceship, as photographed by George Adamski.

Desmond Leslie

Desmond Leslie's contribution is all but forgotten, but he was the primary author of the book. Adamski's section was added since it was a sensational new case, and it helped propel sales to the international bestseller status. Leslie's text examine old texts to find evidence of UFOs throughout history. 

A contemporary review of Flying Saucers Have Landed by P. Schuyler Miller adds some valuable insight:

"...the Leslie-Adamski book merits serious consideration by saucer students only in so far as Desmond Leslie, a British occultist, extends the documentation of saucers and saucerlike phenomena through obscure sources and into ancient times. Drawing on the works of Madame Blavatsky, Ouspensky, James Churchward, Ignatius Donnelly, Annie Besant, C. W. Leadbeater, A. P. Sinnelt, ‘The Tibetan’ and other occultists...

Fanatics of the Leslie - Adamski school need no physical explanation for flying saucers, since by definition unexplained phenomena belong in the realm of the occult, and the occult ‘explains’ all things.”      Astounding Science Fiction April 1954

More recently, UFO historian Jerome Clark wrote about Leslie's lasting influence:

"In his section of 'Flying Saucers Have Landed' (1953), Irish occultist Desmond Leslie drew on esoteric lore (including James Churchward’s literary-hoax 'history' of the lost continent Mu), Celtic legends, pyramidology, and Eastern holy works...
If Leslie’s speculations owe more to occultism, science fiction, and crankish sensibility than to history as ordinarily understood, their echoes would resound through the 1950s and beyond, first in the saucerian ruminations of George Hunt Williamson, M. K. Jessup, Brinsley le Poer Trench, and W. Raymond Drake, then in the 'ancient astronauts' genre inspired by Jacques Bergier, Louis Pauwels, Robert Charroux, and most prominently, Erich von Daniken." 

From "A Brief History of UFO History" http://sohp.us/Sign-Historical-Group-Workshop-Proceedings.pdf

Although many today are unaware of the source, both Desmond Leslie and George Adamski laid the foundation for what ufology is today. They deserve to be remembered for all they've done.

Unlike many of the most interesting UFO cases featured here at The Saucers That Time Forgot, Project Blue Book does have files on George Adamski's stories.
Project Blue Book: Mt. Palomar, CA, 25 Nov 1949 

Multiple Witness UFO Sighting: Tucson Sept. 3, 1952.

Frame from AF film, Operation Moby Dick, 01/1952

Dateline: Tuscon Arizona, September 3, 1952.

A UFO appeared high over the city, a hovering, silvery reflective object seen by multiple witnesses, and was reported on live over a radio broadcast. This story is notable for the testimony by a "trained observer," USAF pilot instructor Don McCraven who described the UFO's phenomenal flight, speed and maneuvers in detail.

Tucson Daily Citizen, September 3, 1952.

May Appear as "Flying Saucers" 

1951 DoD photo.

On 11 October 1951, the Department of Defense sent out an official press photo on the 

USAF research project "Moby Dick,"stating that: 

The 50 to 110 diameter balloons will drift over the United States and altitudes of 10 to 20 miles for the purpose of transmitting data concerning the high altitude winds and will be clearly visible at 100,000 feet above the earth during clear days. The transmitter suspended 100 feet below the balloon will send out signals to direction-finding stations. The Air Force has warned that the "Moby Dick" balloons may appear as "flying saucers" during the early and late hours of the day because of the sun reflecting from the transparent coverings. Persons finding collapsed balloons will receive a reward for the return of the radio unit.

Weather balloons? It was a cover story. The Moby Dick project was being developed for a Cold War surveillance program. For more details, see The Cold War’s Classified Skyhook Program: A Participant’s Revelations by B.D. Gildenberg

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.

UFO Burns Witness: Amarillo, Texas, April 8, 1950

Welcome to The Saucers That Time Forgot, where we focus on the cases that UFO historians either missed, or would like to keep buried. Your hosts are Curt Collins and Claude Falkstrom, and our first case is from Amarillo, Texas, 1950, about a boy who made contact with a flying saucer:

The first report of a UFO burning a witness seems to be this April 8. 1950 CE2 case from Amarillo, Texas. According to the story, David Lightfoot, age 12, and his brother Charles age 9, saw an object land behind a hill, and they were able to walk up to it. David reached out: "My fingers just barely touched it and it felt slick, sorta like a snake would. It was hot, too." It sped off toward northeast, and after the encounter, David's face and arms became red with welts.

Amarillo Sunday News Globe, April 9, 1950.

The Unbeliever

The man who told the world that Flying Saucers are real did not want to believe. In Flying Saucers from Outer Space, while discussing the Sonny Desvergers 1952 Florida Scoutmaster case, Major Donald Keyhoe noted: 

"However, there had been one other case where a saucer was said to have burned an observer. Two boys at Amarillo, Texas, had reported seeing a small disc land near them, its top section still spinning. When one boy touched it, the rotating part speeded up, throwing off a hot gas or spray. Then the disc took off with a whistling sound and quickly disappeared.

To back up this incredible story, the boy displayed some odd red spots on his face and arms. Later I was told that Intelligence had made no investigation; apparently they believed the story had been made up to cover some childish prank which had caused the burns. It sounded like a logical answer." 

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.