Still going through the "room of doom" where boxes and stacks of books and other ephemera await my organizing. In this chaos I found this self-published booklet by Kurt Glemser, a Canadian UFO researcher who published a few titles in the 1970s. I don't know much more than that:
There isn't an introduction, ISBN, or any information regarding publication except "Galaxy Press, 489 Krag St., Ontario N28m 1L2, Canada.
I did find a source on-line that gave 1973 as the publication date.
One of his publications: Glemser co-wrote The Men in Black with Robert Beneschan.
I'm a fan of cheesy cover art in just about all genres, especially vintage books and albums. I couldn't resist the cover so I picked it up; with a title like Draco the Dragon Man, (Cyril Donson,1974) I couldn't resist.
I expected the book to be bad, and wow, I was right! The writing is bad, as well as lurid. Which is to be expected. The sex scenes are so ridiculous. Donson, the author, loves TO WRITE LOTS OF WORDS AND SENTENCES ALL IN CAPS for some reason. Comma abuse is rampant as well as illogical. Oh, and exclamation points! All OVER, the, place! Everyone, is either shouting! Or YELLING, they all seem MAD! All the time! ALL the time!
But I was interested in the topic: underground reptilians. Reptilians as aliens, overlords, half human half beast, as monsters, as intelligent beings living in secret beneath our cities -- all fascinate me. This story however is your basic somewhat thin monster/horror story.
Cyril Donson, British writer, wrote westerns, sci-fi and even a book of poems. The latter which, I can only guess at that one.
An item on Lon Sticker’s Phantoms and Monsters about Elvis and his life long interest in UFOs inspired me to write about the time I met Elvis in Los Angles when I was working at the Free Clinic. (see my post on UFO Mystic.) That was one of my brushes with fame, and esoteric in a round about way, since Elvis had a strong curiosity about UFOs and believed in extraterrestrial life.
Another esoteric brush with fame is, I think, waaaaaaaay cool. It concerns Boris Badenov. Yes, that Boris Badenov! Legend has it that the character actor Akim Tarmioff was the inspiration for the spy character Boris Badenov of the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Here is what a Wikipedia entry has to say about Akim’s inspiration:
Badenov's name is a play on that of the 16th-century Russian Tsar Boris Godunov ("bad enough" vs. "good enough"). His accent and explosive temper are an homage to Hollywood actor Akim Tamiroff, especially Tamiroff's role in The Great McGinty, a 1940 movie directed by Preston Sturges.
Akim (Mikhailovich) Tamiroff, the Russian born character actor who appeared in dozens of films and television shows was often typecast as a Mexican or Greek, among other ethnic characters. He played spies, cops, thieves; all manner of roles. Among the films Akim appeared in:For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943, Lord Jim, 1965, Oceans 11, 1960, Topaki, 1964, and dozens more.
Akim was married to my grandfather’s niece, actress Tamara Shayne. My mother lived with them when she was in her late teens (that would be in late 1940s, early 1950s) when she first arrived in Los Angeles from Oregon. I met them once when I was little; I remember Tamara as being stand offish , but Akim was pretty nice, very funny and playful.
Truly, how cool is it that one of the iconic cartoon characters, Boris Badenov, was based on a family member? (Another fun esoteric synchronistic fact: my mother’s name is a variation of Natasha.)
Is it fair to say Boris was a MIB? No, it just sounded good for the title. Boris was short, fat, and hardly MIB like in behavior or appearance. He was an Eastern European/Russian spy, bumbling, the bad guy, created during the Cold War, when the spy business was everywhere. It still is; and actually, we’ve come back around to Russian spies recently, with movies like SALT and the plethora of Russian spies on television shows.
I have other claims to esoteric fame, which I'll write about in future columns.
Received an email from someone looking for "books and tapes. . by mysterious seller of UFO spoken word LP and 8 track tapes, Will Jima." Jima made recordings of his experiences in the 1970s.
"Secret Government Information Suppressed One of the Most Amazing Recordings Ever Made"
This tape was recorded and distributed independently by one Will Jima . It seems old Will had a deep conviction that the government was suppressing amazing information about UFOs way back in 1974 and decided to put out his own 8-track to let the world in on his fantastic discovery.
This guy was obviously way ahead of his time what with all the X-Files and turn-of-the-millennia UFO mania our culture is in the grips of these days. Mr. Jima had some pretty clear answers to some very relevant UFO questions. The label of the 8-track speaks for itself. The cover image is of--well I don't know what--but presumably it's a UFO.
I knew that if anyone had something about Jima, it'd be Adam Gorightly; he has an excerpt from one of Jima's tapes here. Great listening; I love the background music!
This is a bit overdue, I just haven't had time until today to listen to the interview, but Tim Binnall's recent guest on Binnall of America is Ann Druffel. This is one interview you cannot miss! Ann is co-author (with D. Scott Rogo) of The Tujunga Canyon Contacts, and FIRESTORM: DR. JAMES E. McDONALD's FIGHT FOR UFO SCIENCE, published in 2003. Tunjunga Canyon was one of the first books I read on the UFO/abduction subject, and it was one of the books that threw me into this area.
Ann Druffel, and this interview, is a great resource into UFO history. Her ideas and experience, her insights, into the abduction phenomema are very interesting and refreshing.
Ann has been invovled in NICAP, and so much more. You can listen to the interviews here. Ann's website is here.
Pink Tentacle, an excellent and unique blog, brings us images from the 1970s artist Kazuaki Saito, whose artwork was used on several covers of SF magazine, which are very wonderful.
Clowns digust me and creep me out, always have, and I realized something; my distaste has only become stronger over the years, which is a curious thing. Hmmm, wonder if it has anything to do with all of my UFO experiences?
I found this on Gatochy's blog/Flicker album. Gatochy has a few blogs, devoted in some way to vintage images; some of her blogs are in Portuguese. This was a great find. I was actually looking for something else -- vintage propaganda, for my new blog (yes, I know, you don't need to say anything!) Pulp Jello. I love the art work in this.
Here's some more Great Gazoo stuff from the Flintstones. Gazoo and Fred were on comics for awhile in the 1970s.
Outer space flying saucer stuff meets the holidays is a common theme, but it's not one I ever liked. Just seems so tacky. Anyway, here Gazoo and Fred meet up with a witch for Halloween.
In this one, it looks like they were trying for a different look with Gazoo. He appears slimmer, a bit more stylized. I don't like this version. The ridiculous beatnik/hippie motif; all too common back then. Yeah man, like it's cool, daddy-o!
Sunday, March 16, 2008
“Swamp Gas” being of course the infamous explanation for UFOs seen in the skies back in the day. This is a piece I wrote for American Chronicle in 2006, and thought it’d be interesting to repost it here.
UFOs: Plasma, The New Swamp Gas May 07, 2006
I recently wrote about the items that crop up every so often about how UFOs are dead and gone. (UFOs: Not Dead Yet.) These items are cyclic in nature, insistent in their thesis: UFOs are no longer with us. These appear despite the fact that at the same time, items appear about the latest sightings, encounters, new UFO book and magazine publications, etc. The creaky debunking machine continues however, churning away, giving us the latest explanation for UFOs, reasons on why UFOs are no longer present, or the self-congratulatory, albeit very late news that a particular case was a hoax. (ie, Santelli film.)
On the heels of the most recent bits that UFOs are no longer, are these items that tell us what UFOs are. They are many things, according to these "news" pieces, but one thing is certain, as they tell us: they are not extraterrestrials from outer space. (Or, while rarely stated but certainly implied, are they beings from another dimension, entities of the earth but non-human, and so on.)
Most people, including the average person with a brief acquaintance with UFOs, knows that swamp gas is code for 'explanation for silly flying saucers.'. That?s become a running joke now in pop culture. Well, it seems that, according to the latest news, UFOs really are something as ludicrous; plasma.
Here's a sampling of a few items that have appeared in the past few days:
Scientists explain UFO sightings. Not a creative title, but to the point.
Scientists at the Defence Intelligence Staff, part of the Ministry of Defence, reportedly described how glowing "plasmas" of gas were created by charges of electricity. Air flows then sculpted the plasmas into aerodynamic shapes which appeared to fly at extraordinary speeds through the sky.
I am of the opinion that the people writing these things for their various intel agencies are snorting milk out their noses as they come up with these ideas. They go on:
As a result, people who thought they'd seen a UFO were instead suffering from "extended memory retention and repeat experiences" induced by the plasmas.
No comment. None needed.
Another one; UFO study finds no signs of aliens.
People who claim to have had a "close encounter" are often difficult to persuade that they did not really see what they thought they saw. The report offers a possible medical explanation.
The close proximity of plasma related fields can adversely affect a vehicle or person," states the report.
Local fields of this type have been medically proven to cause responses in the temporal lobes of the human brain. These result in the observer sustaining (and later describing and retaining) his or her own vivid, but mainly incorrect, description of what is experienced."
To really rub it in, they dump a whole shaker full of salt in the wound:
There are, of course, other causes of UFOs - aeroplanes with particularly bright lights, stray odd-shaped balloons and strange flocks of birds, to name but a few.
Apparently they just couldn't resist.
It's dazzling to see how quickly this official explanation has made its way to the news feeds. If you can't smell Big Bad Debunker in all this, it's because, as the saying goes, you haven't been paying attention.
UFO Updates. Anyone who sincerely swallows this explanation for UFOs -- that it's plasma -- is simply naive, stubborn, or both. And if both, that?s a dangerous combination.
I received a book from The Anomalist: Martin S. Kottmeyer's An Alien Who's Who. (thank you Anomalist!) The book has an intro written by Greg Bishop. It seems like fun, as well as an interesting resource. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but it's not that kind of book; it's a collection of names of aliens given to contactees. Kottmeyer's thoughts on these things is as interesting as the names, of course. (Not that I agree with Kottmeyer but I do usually appreciate his point of view, which is often fresh, challenging and needed in this field.)
I’m very interested in the Triangles. Having seen one myself I’m naturally curious about them. Just what are they, where are they from, why the decades long official silence? More questions: why are they seen all over the globe, and how does this whole restricted air space work in this context?
The blog Power Pop, which I just discovered by way of UFO Review, has a little item on Zolar X, who were active around 1973 to 1981. There’s a bit more on them and a YouTube video. Love that glam outer space 70s/80s rock!
