George Adamski was one of the most famous - or notorious - figures on the
flying-saucer scene from 1952 until his death in 1965. In books and lectures
he recounted his meetings with friendly Venusians, Martians, and Saturnians.
He also claimed that high government officials - themselves in contact with
"Space Brothers" - secretly knew he was telling the truth.
Nonetheless, Adamski was shocked one day in December 1957 to receive a letter
written on U.S. State Department stationery with a stamped department seal and
a Washington, D.C., postmark. Signed by "R. E. Straith, Cultural Exchange
Committee," it stated,
"The Department has on file a great deal of
confirmatory evidence bearing out your own claims... While certainly
the Department cannot publicly confirm your experiences, it can, I believe,
with propriety, encourage your work."
The Straith letter electrified Adamski's followers. They charged the
department with covering up the truth when the department denied, as it did
repeatedly, that it knew anything of an "R. E. Straith" or a "Cultural
Exchange Committee."
All the while Straith proved elusive; despite repeated
efforts, Adamski's supporters could not find him. Undaunted, they concluded
that his committee must be so highly classified that the government would
never admit to its existence.
Ufologists skeptical of Adamski's claims were sure the letter was a forgery -
perhaps, as analyst Lonzo Dove suspected, composed on the typewriter of Gray
Barker, a saucer publisher and practical joker.
When Dove submitted an article
on the subject to Saucer News editor Jim Moseley, Moseley rejected it on the
grounds that Dove had not proved his case. But years later, after Barker's
death in December 1984, Moseley confessed that he and Barker had written the
letter on official stationery provided by a friend of Barker's, a young man
with a relative high in the government.
"...Persons who tell such stories are known in the UFO business as
'contactees.'
The first and foremost among them was a fellow named George Adamski.
He was a man of meager scholastic attainments, but he made up for that
shortcoming by having an excellent imagination, a pleasing personality,
and an apparently endless supply of gall.
George established the ground rules for the contactees which they
have dutifully followed.
He was the first--- and he showed that there
was considerable loot to be made by peddling tales of talking with
space people. George instinctively realized that everything had to be
pretty nebulous; he knew that details would be disastrous.
Prior to becoming associated with a hamburger stand on the road to
Mt. Palomar, George had worked in a hamburger stand as a grill cook.
With his scientific background he wrote, in his spare time, a document
which he called 'An Imaginary Trip to the Moon, Venus, and Mars.' He
voluntarily listed it with the Library of Congress for copyright
purposes as A WORK OF FICTION.
That was in 1949.
His effort did not attract many customers but it did attract the
attention of a lady writer who saw gold in them there space ships. She
made a deal with George to rewrite his epic; she was to furnish the
skilled writings and he was to furnish the photographs of the space
ships.
This lady brought the finished manuscript to me for appraisal and she
brought with it a clutch of the crudest UFO photographs I had seen in
years. I declined to have anything to do with the mess and she left my
office in a bit of a huff.
In its revised form it told a yarn of how George had ventured into
the desert of southern California, where he met a "scout ship" from
which stepped a gorgeous doll in golden coveralls.
She spoke to him in
a bell-like voice in a language which he did not understand, so they
had to resort to telepathy, or something similar, to carry on their
conversation.
And then, as she prepared to leave him, she tapped out a
message in the sand with her little boot. George realized that she
wanted him to preserve this message (it was terribly important) and,
having a pocket full of wet plaster of Paris (which he seemingly always
carried with him on desert trips), George quickly made a plaster cast
of the footprint with the message, which he eventually reproduced for
the educational advancement of his readers, who were legion.
Of the numerous photographs which embellished the book let it be said
that some of them could not have been taken as claimed. The others were
crudely 'simulated,' as the Air Force put it charitably.
But for me the payoff was the alleged photograph of Adamski's 'scout
ship' in which he allegedly took a trip to Venus and returned. The
picture as shown in his book was taken either on a day when three suns
were shining---or else it was a small object taken with three
floodlights for illumination.
After eight years of patient search I
finally came to the conclusion that his space ship was in reality the
top of a canister-type vacuum cleaner, made in 1937. I doubt that many
persons are traveling through space in vacuum cleaner tops.
Adamski communicated with me frequently. When he was questioned about
the title of 'professor' which he used, he explained that it was just
an honorary title given to him by his 'students', and that he never
used it himself. George was evidently forgetful, for the letters he
sent me were always signed 'Professor George Adamski.'"
ADAMSKI WAS CERTAINLY INVENTIVE AND POSSIBLY CAPABLE OF SELF DELUSION.
WHEN CONFRONTEDBY PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY THE SOVIET LUNA 3 SPACE PROBE
OF THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON IN OCTOBER 1959, ADAMSKI REPORTED THAT
THE PICTURES MUST HAVE BEEN TOUCHED UP BY SOVIET SCIENTISTS(WE SAY THE
SAME THING TODAY ABOUT NASA & MARS!).
HE SAID THIS WAS DONE TO DECIEVE
US SPACE SCIENTISTS. MANY LATER CONTACTEE'SHAVE SUFFERED FROM SIMILAR
CONFUSION BETWEEN REALITY & FANTASY. BUT THEIR MOTIVES WERE IN GENERAL
MORE SELFLESS THAN ADAMSKI'S, HE REVELED IN FAME, AND APPRECIATED THE
FORTUNE THE BOOKS & APPEARANCES BROUGHT HIM.
TODAY IT SEEMS ASTONISHING
THAT ANYONE ACTUALLY BELIEVED HIM.... WOULD YOU HAVE BOUGHT A SECOND
HAND SAUCER FROM THE MAN.... LET ALONE OF HIS STORIES?
