1927 UFO Photo From Mexico

This photo, taken in 1927 in Mexico, is interesting! Read more about it on Inexplicata-The Journal of Hispanic Ufology. (A great blog by the way.)

SPACE PATROL! (1950)

My husband "George" went to a live taping of Space Patrol in Los Angeles when he was about six years old. (I was either not born yet or about a year, two years old, then!) He doesn't remember much about it, just that the exterior of the building was "beige," and he brought up on stage but, darn it, he doesn't remember details. He loved the show when he was a kid, of course, looking at the clips now, they're hysterical...though kind of charming. I love the "Space O' Phone."

Space Patrol was a half hour show, but they had a daily 15 min. show that aired daily in L.A., and was syndicated.

Space Patrol, out!

Happy Birthday Tim Binnall!

It's a little late but a HUGE BIG FAT ALIEN ESOTERIC HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TIM BINNALL!!!!!

Hope you a great birthday Tim!

INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN 1957 SCI-FI TRAILER

My Favorite Martian

Some of my favorite TV shows when I was a kid were shows like My Favorite Martian, Bewitched, Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, etc. Probably not surprising.

I really liked My Favorite Martian for some reason. The show starred Bill Bixby as Tim O’Hara, hep young, human bachelor (who was also the Hulk and the Magician, as well as the father in The Courtship of Eddie’s Father) and Ray Walston, as “Uncle Martin,” the martian. The show ran from 1963 to 1966.

I think it was a combination of the cute upstairs apartment, it was in L.A., I had a crush on Bill Bixby,-- and, he played a reporter, another cool thing, lol -- I was fascinated by the idea of having a Martian for an "uncle." I liked the music too. (I just thought of something, how ironic and frustrating for the character, Tim O'Hara, to be a reporter and yet not get the scoop on the biggest news of the century; that a real live Martian was living in your apartment!)

Like most of the sit coms where the main character is different, usually non-human (like a genie, or a Martian or from space, or a witch, etc.) only one human knows the truth. Human and alien/witch/genie/what have you get into all kinds of trouble because of this, all while trying to keep everyone else from finding out that the relative, wife, nanny, etc. are non-human, magical beings of some kind. And there’s usually a human that’s suspicious -- they’re not sure what, or why, exactly, but they know something isn’t right. Remember Mrs. Ghostly in Bewitched? Or detective Bill Brennan in My Favorite Martian.

Uncle Martin spent much of his time trying to repair his spaceship so he could get back to his planet. His attempts at fixing his craft often caused all kinds of problems for everyone around him.

Listen to Saturn

This is really wonderful, in an eerie way. You can listen to Saturn on the JPL site. One thing that is so spooky, in a magical wondrous way, is that these sounds sound just like what you’d expect to hear in some old flying saucer movie.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=1613

Vampira Goes to the Big Sleep

The actress that was "Vampira" has passed on. Read more on Adam Gorightly's Untamed Dimensions.

Sex and Rockets

Looking at the Radio Mysterioso site, I found an ad for this book: Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons, by John Carter, with an introduction by Robert Anton Wilson. Seems like another book to add to my long list of books!

So who was Jack Parsons, I asked myself. An extremely interesting person! From Wikipedia:

John Whiteside Parsons (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons on October 2, 1914 – died June 17, 1952), was an American rocket propulsion researcher at the California Institute of Technology and co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Aerojet Corporation. He was also an enthusiastic occultist, and one of the earliest American devotees of Aleister Crowley.

Parsons was also an avid practitioner of the occult arts, and a follower of Thelema. He saw no contradiction between his scientific and magical pursuits: before each rocket test launch, Parsons would invoke the god Pan.

There's more, much more . . . definitely an intriguing person in the world of the strange!

Spaceship Under the Apple Tree

While we’re talking about children’s flying saucer books, my husband mentioned today that he remembers one of the first books he read when he was about six or seven, and that was Spaceship Under the Appletree, 1952. He remembered he liked it, and that the cover was green. So here it is:

I also found this version of the cover, but it’s not as nice:

It’s going for a quite a bit too, though not as much as Susie Saucer. Amazon.com has about half a dozen listings for the book, ranging from $31.15, to $94.91.

It's Susie Saucer!

I love this one! This one's from 1952. Another big thanks to UFO POP.com, where I found this image.

I also found this, from the

Susie Saucer, the youngest of all flying saucers, was specially chosen to fly to earth with flame, the lord of venus. There she met Ronnie The Rocket and, disobeying Flame's orders, she flew away to play with him.

Biblio.com has an edition for sale, at only a mere $1,550.00. On the Alibris book site, it's selling for $1,552.00.

"Flying Saucers for Everybody!"

This is from a neat site: Karl Schroeder's Science Fiction.

"Flying Saucers for Everybody (Mechanix Illustrated, March, 1957) was written by a Mr. Frank Tinsley, who as it turns out was a frequent and enthusiastic contributor of SF to magazines such as Amazing Stories. I believe he was also an illustrator who did some work on the Tom Swift books.

The rest of the article is a nice piece on memories of reading about flying saucers, inventions and the future in magazines like Popular Mechanics.

Early UFO Images

I was a little surprised, and delighted, to find illustrations dealing with the ideas of UFOs, flying saucers, and machine type things from space, from the 1900s to around the late 1930s. UFO Pop.com is a great resource for images, as well as just goofing off and searching the internet.



I like the phrasing on this one: "early scientification." Not sure what that means, but it sounds, well, "scientifical!"


This one is interesting: fears of giant sized flying saucer machines attacking high rises and sky scrapers like the Empire State building, etc.

The Bamboo Saucer

Vintage poster for the movie The Bamboo Saucer (1968) It's not one I've seen (yet.)

From 1954: Faking UFO photos

From 1954: How To Fake a Flying Saucer

An article from more than fifty years ago on how to fake flying saucer photos: “A Flying Saucer has been in my house . . .” by Vinicius Lima.

UFO Online: WW II Foo Fighters

On Dan Dare’s UFO Online blog, he has an article up about the Foo Fighters of WW II. (the article was written by Fran Black.):

In the 1938 comic strip Smokey Stover, a firefighter was known for his line, “Where there’s foo, there’s fire.” From Smokey, aircraft pilots borrowed the term “foo fire” to describe the various unexplainable phenomenon seen in the skies over Europe and the Pacific theatre during World War II. While Allied pilots initially thought the flying objects were German secret or psychological weapons, after the war it was discovered that sightings were also reported by the enemy, who had assumed the crafts were US-made. To this day, the sightings remain a mystery.

You can read the rest here.

Dana Howard Synchronicity

UFO Trickster is about. I've been intrigued by Dana Howard's contactee stories, having written two articles in the past month about this. Greg Bishop took a photo of the church she went to; it's still there, though no longer a Venusian mediumnistic church of course. (See post below or visit UFO Mystic.com.)

This all led me to begin work on a project about Howard, and I checked e-bay for any books by her. Only one was listed;the seller lives in the town next to mine. AND, the seller has a shop in my town, about a mile from me. So I'm off to buy the book.

The book is Up Rainbow Hill, 1957.
Kind of spooky, eh? Do the Space Brothers have anything to do with this?

Oldest UFO Photo?

Writer Richelle Hawks has a very interesting article on UFO Digest right now: On The Right Track: Toward Solving the Mystery of the First Known UFO Photograph. Just what is that thing anyway?

Greg Bishop on Female Contactees

Greg Bishop on UFO Mystic, has nice words about my article on Dana Howard, much appreciated. He expands on the topic of female Contactees, and has a photo of Dana Howard at Giant Rock, great find!

Contactee Dana Howard in Understanding

Contactees Dana Howard in Daniel Fry's Understanding newsletter.

I received a nice e-mail from Sean Donovan, who runs the Daniel Fry.com website. He let me know that Dana Howard wrote or appeared in several issues of Fry’s newsletter Understanding, and very kindly provided links to more information. (The Daniel Fry website is a valuable resource, well maintained. It takes a lot of work to do something like that!)

In Understanding, Volume 1, Number 10, October 1956 issue, Howard wrote Upon Another Dawn. Dana Howard writes about a New Age that “will soon be delivered.” This new era is one of love, “replacing the worn our concept of “fear God whom thouh hans’t not seen anc can’st never know.” “ Of the spaceships, she writes:

While flying saucer sightings have been somewhat on the wane this past year, many more around the world are making subjective contact with space people. The reports are identical in every instance . . . the outlook on life has been changed in "the twinkling of an eye." Some are cognizant of these space visitors. Others know intuitively they have made contact. They know because something inside tells them it is so.

Venus is the new heaven in Dana Howard’s world, and America is the home of this New Age of love and higher understanding:

"Only this, our Planet Venus, has known the fullness of perfection. But, step by step each and every planet in the broad universal system must climb the golden stairs. Child of Earth . . . your own America is the hope of your planet. She shall rise to her greatness, a haven for all who seek rest. With the coming of the New Dispensation, America, the land that has housed so many races, shall rise. Her banner of freedom shall wave in all its glory."

Under the wise leadership of those from On High, people will be gathered together in one fold. In that day America will 'become the brightest star in the galaxy, for right here in our own land we will establish an empire: of peace.

Nick Redfern on The Allende Letters and the VARO Edition . . .

I like what Nick Redfern writes in his review of the book The Allende Letters and the VARO Edition of The Case for the UFOs over on UFO Mystic:

If, like me and Greg, you are a fan of old-time Ufology and that long-gone era when (A) UFOs really were shaped like Flying Saucers; (B) long-haired space-beings with entertainingly-stupid names and from far-off galaxies demanded we disarm our nukes, stole our soil and stopped the engines on our cars; (C) there existed a UFO research group - NICAP - that actually achieved things, beyond the bickering and name-calling that typifies much of today’s scene; and (D) Ufology was actually fun, rather than just deathly serious, pompously self-important, and amusingly ego-driven, then this is a book you are definitely going to want: a very-welcome reprint of a decidedly strange book that has become legendary in ufological circles: The Allende Letters and the VARO Edition of The Case for the UFOs.

I started this blog because I share this philosophy. It’s not a waste of time or a case of beating a dead horse, as some criticize (this looking back on UFO history/flying saucer era) it’s for the above reasons, as Redfern stated. And more; maybe we can discover new things by looking back now and then. We can apply to what we learn from old cases and stories as we explore new cases and stories. Take a look at Nick’s post for more. The book is yet another one on my ever growing list of UFO and Fortean books.

New link for The Skeptoid Zone

New official url for my blog The Skeptoid Zone: http://www.theskeptoidzone.com/

Me! On Culture of Contact

For some reason, Jeremy Vaeni thought it'd be a good idea to interview me for a Culture of Contact podcast. Well, I know the reason -- he wants to out me as an abductee. You can find out if I admit it or not by listening to the interview, which should be available Tuesday or Thursday. I'll give an update when I know more.

I will say it was great fun, Jeremy is a great host/interviewer and I felt very comfortable. No doubt I came off like a bozo, but that's okay. I had fun.

Signal to Noise: Contactees Reconsidered Part 4

Daniel has offered his second response in the second round of Signal to Noise.
As with Round I, I’m afraid it isn’t much of a smack down; we seem to agree more than we disagree. (Now, take Daniel’s very well thought out and well presented idea for a UFO oversight committee; we could get into some strong disagreements there; he’s all for it, I’m agin’ it.)

So, for those of you who like nasty sneering sarcastic fights between pundits of esoterica, you won’t find it here.

I will get a bit nit picky though, just to show I’m on the job.

Daniel wrote, about “clowns” etc. in UFOlogy:

The charlatans and egomaniacs, and also the authentically disturbed (which are not unique to any field) have nothing to contribute to the study of UFOs. Assuming Truman Bethurum, for example, was sincere and had an actual experience, then his story may be helpful. If he was a liar, his story doesn’t add any illumination to this murky subject — in fact, it does just the opposite. The charlatans need to be weeded out of any study so that whatever data is gleaned has validity. This is just common sense.

We’ll never know if people like Truman Bethrum were telling the truth or not. So we can’t “weed “ him out, since we don’t know what’s true, if anything, and what isn’t. Many have already weeded him out, and others like him, since they’ve decided that by definition they are charlatans. But no one knows that for a fact, and what if the Truman Bethrums of the world are telling the truth? (that doesn’t mean it happened the way they say it did; remember in Round I I said I believe the Contactees, I just didn't take them literally.)

And I can’t let go of the flap of individuals who arose suddenly to announce to the world that they had experienced some extraordinary things in context of the Contactee realm. Something was happening in the world. It wasn’t just one, or two, people who decided they were visited by Venusian. It was a whole lot of people. A whole lot of people believed these things happened to them. They believed they happened either because they all were crazy or liars, or, they were telling the truth. (as they saw it.) That in itself merits investigation.

Aliens. Given the reality of the solar system as we know it today, if these were extraterrestrial beings, they could not be from the places they claimed. All manner of arguments could be served up to justify this, but it seems highly unlikely that beings from elsewhere in the universe would even look like us, let alone communicate with us in English, let alone want to lie about their point of origin. Given the assumption these are real experiences, this seems to me to be the least likely possibility.

Because an entity says hits from Venus, doesn't mean it is from Venus. It could be from Mars, the CIA spook-basement of weird things, inner earth, or who knows. If it is from Mars, (or the Moon) it could get here in no time at all. How do we know what an obviously technological superior species of beings are capable of?

As to knowing the English language; either via telepathy or some other technological means, that isn’t so hard to understand. The entities either were literally speaking English, or they had some way of communicating (telepathy, mind control, hypnosis, etc..) that had the Contactees believing they were communicating in the same language.

Mind Control / “Theater.” We’ve all heard the suggestion that there were “assets” placed in the early UFO research community to some end, be it disinformation or manipulation of the course the community was taking. Some have suggested the contactees themselves may have been these kind of assets. Staging an event for the “benefit” of a witness bypasses the issue of creating sincerity, though the resources to accomplish this on the scale described by the contactees does not seem remotely plausible. Truman Bethurum experience of witnessing a 300 foot wide flying saucer hovering for an extended period a few feet over the desert floor and then flying off at enormous speed is a feat that would be difficult to achieve today — even given existing special effects optical trickery or (publicly disclosed) aviation technology. This doesn’t seem particularly likely to me, either.

Truman Bethrum may have thought he’d seen a craft that large. Holographic projection, hallucinations induced by drugs or hypnosis, could be reasons why the Contactees thought they saw what they saw, and visited places like Venus. Suggestion combined with the right props and stage dressing can make anyone believe anything, when done right.

And if the craft were operated by extraterrestrials, it wouldn't be at all difficult.

Now I would be happy to escalate this possibility if it can be shown the ability to brainwash an individual into believing an experience of this sort could be done at that time seamlessly enough to escape detection.

Oh, I think so. I have no doubt.

Which still leaves us with pretty much two choices: real aliens really came from Venus or the Moon or even outside the solar system, or some sort of human based cabal of mind control evil doers. Both sound pretty nutty, I admit. But we know elements within governments,including the U.S., have a long history of committing mind control and other experimental crimes against civilians. (Of course that doesn’t explain some of the Contactee encounters in other countries.) And I’ll just come and say it: aliens exist. Well, I don’t know that for a fact of course, but I’m of the vehemently strong opinion they do, and they’ve been around here for a long time. Along with all kind of other entities not necessarily from outer space but not human either.
There. I said it.

I don’t know if the Contactees were literally contacted by extraterrestrials, and in fact, I think it’s the least likely, though not at all impossible.

There’s a third possibility; for thousands of years humankind has experienced the liminal, the strange travels from the mundane to what some of us call the sacred, others the supernatural. I suspect that that’s what the Contactees experienced; a sort of time/dimensional flap of Contactees and “Venusian” that encountered each other.

There seems to be a force, an energy, some kind of entity that manifests itself in different ways at different times that's a part of the UFOlogical picture. If we ignore this characteristic (Trickster or call it what you like) or dismiss it as just goofball stuff, we do ourselves a disservice. We can maybe understand more about the UFO phenomenon if we remain open to these types of UFO encounters.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Be safe, be happy!

[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Photos*]

Darkness in the Desert

Nick Redfern has another new blog: Darkness in the Desert, which has to do with research concerning his thesis in his book Body Snatchers in the Desert:The Horrible Truth at the Heart of the Roswell Story.

DEDICATED TO REVEALING THE LATEST NEWS, VIEWS AND FINDINGS CONCERNING NICK REDFERN'S CONTROVERSIAL BOOK "BODY SNATCHERS IN THE DESERT: THE HORRIBLE TRUTH AT THE HEART OF THE ROSWELL STORY."

Saucer Gossip: A Bit of Silliness. . .

My recent item on: Saucer Gossip: A Bit of History and Silliness About the Trent Case

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/494571/saucer_gossip_a_bit_of_history_and.html

Vintage Soviet Xmas Cards

While looking for vintage holiday images, I found this site that has a great collection of vintage Christmas cards from Soviet Russia days blending wishes for a happy holiday season with images of space exploration. Propaganda meets tradition. This doesn't have anything to do with UFOs or flying saucers directly, but given the context of the Cold War era and the Space Race combined with the always present flying saucer stories, I thought it was appropriate to share here.


Link to more images:
http://www.mazaika.com/postcard/aerospace0.htm

Contactee Dana Howard: From Venus or Mary?

My recent item on female Contactee Dana Howard for UFO Digest: The Mystical Contactee Encounters of Dana Howard:Parallels to Marian Apparitions? Howard had her first contact in 1939, having them again in the 1950s.

A new book by authors Joe Oesterle and Tim Cridland: “ Weird Las Vegas and Nevada, Your Alternative Travel Guide to Sin City and the Silver State, seems like it’s going to be a good juicy Fortean read.

Among other things, the book addresses a purported UFO crash in Ely, Nevada in 1952, complete with dead alien bodies and cover-ups, etc.

http://www.elynews.com/articles/2007/12/12/lifestyle/life02.txt

Contactees: “We Met The Space People”

1959. Sisters Helen and Betty Mitchell met humanoid type beings in Missouri. They wrote a book about their encounter. You can download the book for free at the site. Can't wait to read it!

This is an odd bit of synchronicity: I was just working with Richelle Hawks about this whole Contactee thing, and had included in my answer to her that few, if any, women were Contactees; they seem to have all been male. But I wasn't sure of that, so I deleted it and didn't include that in my final reply to Richelle.

Then, while searching the web for something, the first thing I came across was this. Nifty!

cut and paste if link doesn't work: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/11/06/1959-ufo-contactee-b.html

Fire in the Sky (Travis Walton)

Billy Booth has a piece on the Walton case:The Walton Abduction.

In 1975, Travis Walton and a few of his co-workers encountered a UFO. Walton went missing, he was found five days later, the rest is UFO history.

A movie; Fire in the Sky, was made in 1993 about Walton’s experiences. (Robert Patrick co-starred; Patrick was the actor who replaced David Duchovny in The X-Files.)

Naturally, the debunkers, particularly the late Philip Klass, did their best to rip Walton apart. Travis Walton and the other witnesses still stick to their story, to this day, no one’s managed to reveal anything, show any compelling evidence, that proves they’re lying. As Booth says:

Personally, I believe that the Walton abduction really occurred, and those who disagree with me cannot offer any evidence to support their negative position.

There’s a link he provides to a video about the case from the Weird Travels program.

cut and paste if link doesn’t work: http://ufos.about.com/b/2007/12/17/the-walton-abduction.htm

Signal to Noise: The Contactees: My Response

Daniel Brenton’s first Signal to Noise on the Contactees.

I Believe Them, I Just Don’t Take Them Literally
To Daniel Brenton’s credit, he acknowledges that, in spite of his opinions on the Contactees, the subject should be studied with both a seriousness and openness:

It is fair to say that my inclination toward Adamski’s story is that he was a charlatan, which can’t help but invalidate his story, but I am open to discuss any compelling evidence that suggests the picture may be more complex.

We need to take them seriously, not just reject them for being quaint kooks. Daniel writes that the Contactees, like George Adamski, couldn’t possibly have made the outer space journeys to Venus and the like, because it’s just impossible, given the physics involved. Also, their reports of what it was like on these planets were clearly fantastical, not meshing in any way with what we know. I don’t take them literally, but I believe them. I don’t believe them in this sense: I don’t believe they literally went to Venus, or Mars, or any other planet. In fact, I don't think they ever left the desert. However, I believe they thought they left the desert. But this doesn’t mean the Contactees were lying.something happened to these Contactees that was profound. Yes, their experiences were off the edge, but much of both UFO and anomalous phenomena is off the the edge as well as nonsensical.

The nonsensical aspect to encounters shouldn’t, as it too often does, be a means to dismiss them completely. We can learn from these so-called “nonsensical” behaviors of “them.” Whoever “they” are.

“They” whether they be aliens from space, entities here on earth, military/government spooks, inner earth dwelling nazis, or a combination, have been playing games with us for a very long time. They change the props and sets, but continue on with us, manifesting before us with abandon. We choose to either watch and listen and maybe learn, or deny, ignore, and debunk.

I suppose it’s a matter of perspective. If one remains stuck in the opinion the UFO phenomena is pretty much just nuts and bolts -- literal ETs from a literal planet -- we’re not going to get anywhere. And that goes for understanding the Contactees as well.

We Need the Circus
We can’t separate ourselves from the phenomena. We’re more participants than some of us might think. As Colin Bennett said in his book on Adamski Looking for Orthon, we need the so-called circus like aspect of the weird, including UFOs:
"

Odd folk trouble Authority if only because it doesn’t understand them. Weird views are not directly criminal, yet they subvert society in a much more subtle way.

. .
Adamski and the other Contactees were certainly “odd folk.” But Bennett insists we need their presence:

“We need him (Adamski) if only because his views are quite wonderfully absurd.

”

It doesn't matter if what they experienced “really” happened as they say it did, or if some of it did, and some of it didn’t. Each time something surreal, absurd and fantastic happens -- something Fortean and anomalous -- we can choose to really look at it, or, do our best to deflate it.

Our reactions to the Contactees is as much a part of the phenomena as anything. In fact, the “odd folk” are the jesters we need. We need them to jar us out of complacency and assumption of the mundane as the only paradigm. We need them to make us go “What the . . .?!” There are dozens of reasons why we need the Contactees, and other “odd folk.” The minute we tell ourselves they’re nothing more than worthless frauds or kooks and get rid of them, we lose a lot of ground in ever understanding the UFO phenomena.

Another point Bennett makes about the Contactees and these weird experiences, is what it shows us about imagination, creativity, and our active presence in the phenomena. Trips to Venus didn’t happen, okay. That’s not the end of things, however:

"Adamski certainly made seemingly nonsensical statements, such as saying Venus is inhabited by human-like forms. though this might indeed appear to be nonsense, it certainly brings the picture of such an absurdity into a mind, though momentarily. Though the mind may reject immediately such rubbish, nevertheless, for a fleeting instant, it has created a picture o fan inhabited Venus, if only to reject the image immediately. This fleeting act of imagination is the very first minute building block of a possible universe in which Venus might indeed be populated in the manner describes by Adamski."(Bennett: pp141-142)

Daniel cites Curtis Peebles:

In the late 1980s I ran across the Curtis Peebles commentary from his Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth that followers of Adamski reported. During Prohibition Adamski had founded a monastery in Laguna Beach and acquired a license to make wine for religious purposes. He claimed he had made “enough wine for all of Southern California” and cursed Roosevelt for the repeal of Prohibition. If not for that, he said “I wouldn’t had to get into this saucer crap.”

That’s pretty damning.

Peebles is an avowed skeptic:
"

I am a skeptic. I believe flying saucer reports are misinterpretations of conventional objects, phenomena, and experiences. I do not believe the evidence indicates the Earth is under massive surveillance by disk-shaped alien spaceships."

His view of the Contactees is certainly colored by his beliefs. (To be fair, he does tell readers to “make up their own minds,” regarding UFOs.)
As to Adamski’s statement about getting” into this saucer crap,” (if true) it’s a moot point, given the context of the Contactee phenomena. (Again, this isn't to say Adamski could have been full of crap, or deny that he said this. One interpretation could be he meant that this "flying saucer crap" was something he wouldn't wish on anyone.)


The Nonsensical
Daniel discusses another Contactee, Truman Bethurum, author of The Flying Saucers Have Landed.:

A few things did jump out at me:

* The location of the planet Captain Rhanes and crew came from — “Clarion” — was explicitly “behind the Moon.” Up until that point, most the references I had read about Bethurum said “behind the Sun.”

Not to go on at length, but it is possible for a small object (say, the size of a minor asteroid or less) to “hang” in a position about 30,000 miles over the far side of the Moon. (This has to do with mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrange’s solution to “three-body problem” in celestial mechanics.) However, this so-called “Lagrange point” isn’t particularly stable, anything placed in it will eventually drift out, anything the size of a planet would upset the balance of that kind of relationship, and the Moon wouldn’t obscure it, to boot.

Okay. But this isn’t the point; something happened in these deserts (and the fact they happen in deserts, mostly, is interesting in itself) that caused these Contactees to spend the rest of their lives insisting they were telling the truth.



Daniel cites a few more things from the book, such as the female entity Aura Rhanes drinking orange juice in a diner and disappearing when Bethurum followed her. Bethurum said he had eleven encounters, and Daniel writes that eleven is a “mystical number.” This reminds Daniel of the famous pancake story:

I was made aware of a very odd story through Jacques Vallee’s book Dimensions, which was apparently referenced in his earlier Passport to Magonia. On April 18, 1961, Joe Simonton of Eagle River, Wisconsin, had a 30 foot wide flying disk land near his house, and three short human-appearing occupants wearing uniforms with turtleneck shirts requested a jug of water from Simonton. In return they gave him three small crispy pancakes.

These pancakes were in fact analyzed and found to be perfectly ordinary.

Assuming the witness was truthful (he was found to be credible, even though his story wasn’t) then the event was real but nonsensical.

Perhaps Bethurum was in the same boat. Maybe Adamski was as well, even though it seems clear he is an unreliable source. It is a fairly common suggestion that some contactees may have started with a genuine experience, and, having nothing else to tell, made the choice to fabricate material to keep the audience interested.

I really don’t think that’s it. Although it’s true that some glitch happens in these kinds of encounters; Adamski clearly getting swept up by his world wide tour, where he presented his experiences to eager audiences, including celebrities and royalty, or Contactee Daniel Fry, who admitted lying about an encounter, these Contactees carried on with a sincere insistence about their experiences.


Witnesses
But then there are other things that throw more wrenches into the phenomena. Adamski wasn’t the sole witness to his flying saucers, there were other witnesses. Lou Zinsstag, in the book about Adamski: Their Man On Earth,talks about her own sightings and encounters with these beings. Daniel Fry appeared to be sincerely moved by what he experienced, and spent the rest of his life writing on spiritual matters; he had a newsletter and “followers’ although he made it clear the was not a leader of anything of any kind. George Van Tassel spent many years in the desert, building his Integratron. Van Tassel was convinced of the benefits of his machine like building -- inspiration courtesy of the aliens. The Contactee phenomena, like all of Fortean/UFOlogical events, has its share of synchronicities and odd juxtapositions; for example, Lou Zinsstag, Adamski’s Swiss liaison, was related to Carl Jung.

Adamski was visited on more than one occasion by military personnel; he was even asked to photograph the saucers for them! This reeks of some kind of mind control head game scenario, along the lines of what was done to Paul Bennewitz.

The photo below of Van Tassel's Integratron was taken in 1967 by a Richard T. Sandberg of Pomona, Calif. Sandberg insisted a "gleaming object loomed up" as he was taking the photo.



In an interview with Van Tassel, Long John Nebel (famous radio talk show host in the 1960s who interviewed many UFO researchers and witnesses) asked him about one of the entities called Solgando that had visited him in the desert:

I reminded George Van Tassel: that was three years ago and you mentioned that Solgando said he would be back to see you again. Has he ever contacted you since that time?

George's answer was elegantly simple: "No."

Van Tassel could have lied; and said that he was visited many times over. Why didn't he? Maybe because he was being truthful. (Interesting the name of the entity was Solgado -- Sol means sun in Spanish.)

There are other Contactees in this strange story. Howard Menger,in 1956, had his own experiences in New Jersey, not the desert. But his descriptions and photographs of craft are similar to the other Contactees, including Adamski's:



The Desert Stage
The desert is a perfect stage for these types of events. Remote, empty wide open spaces. A perfect setting for the aliens or other entities to do their performances. Underground (literally) nazis manipulating their UFOs and playing with us land dwellers. (I’m not serious about that one.) Contactee George Van Tassel claimed to use the coordinates of the Great Pyramid and Giant Rock as part of his plans, and insisted that the desert was a crucial element in ensuring the Integratron would successful. Or, the perfect setting for some kind of staged event by the military. Something about the whole quirky Contactee experience just smacks of the beginnings of the MILAB theory. (Military Abductions.) The Contactees experiences could have been pure liminal events, or a combination of these things. But the point is, there is much to learn from the Contactee Era, and it’s time we looked at anew with fresh approaches.

Parallels to Abduction and Other UFO Accounts
Van Tassel reports that he woke up one night to find someone standing at the foot of his bed. Sleeping out in the desert -- literally outside, due to the heat -- he awoke to find someone standing at the foot of their bed:

"I tried to waken the wife and she seemed to be under some spell.

Following Solgado to the UFO, Van Tassel began to feel ill:

"As I approached this ship with this man, I became very nauseated. And this feeling became greater as I got closer to the ship.

(The name Solgado -- "sol" meaning sun -- is one more Fortean grin of synchronicity in the Contactee play.)

The reports of telepathy, being moved against one's will, other potential witnesses unaware or in a deep sleep, the overall bizarreness of the phenomena parallel abduction and other UFO accounts. Were these Contactee experiences preludes to the abduction phenomena, caused either by non-human entities -- or humans, as in military ops?

Putting The Fortean Back In UFOlogy
Daniel concludes:

Looking at the question of the contactees, we have a segment of a the UFO mystery that begs for dismissal yet raises more questions. If we wish to categorize the overall phenomenon as “other people’s spaceships” we are forced, in a sense, to ignore the stories of these individuals, and with them an number of other aspects of the subject. In reality, for integrity’s sake we have to look at the entire picture — including the nonsensical parts — to reach a complete understanding.

Agreed.

Well, that wasn’t much of a smackdown, was it? We seem to agree more than not. I cannot stress how crucial it is for researchers to acknowledge what Daniel wrote:

“In reality, for integrity’s sake we have to look at the entire picture — including the nonsensical parts — to reach a complete understanding."

We need to expand our thinking, acknowledge our own involvement in this continuing performance, and not always take things literally or in such concrete, either or, black and white terms.

I don’t recall who said this some time ago (and if anyone knows, please tell me)- don’t know if it was Bennett or whom) but it was about the need to put the Fortean back into UFOlogy. Or, the other way around. The Fortean anomalous world has something at its core: the tension between the Trickster (cosmic joker, prankster, the Fool) and the Infrastructure. We have to understand that if we hope to get even a glimmer of understanding in these kinds of experiences.


Context
Out in the deserts, several people had similar Contactees experiences. Why? Were they all simply deluded? Easy answer, but also the cheap way out. No, something more than just kooky victims of heat stroke occurred during that time, and we need to take a serious look at their experiences. Whatever happened; aliens, military mind games, or some sort of terrestrial entity, we'll never know if we simply brush the Contactees off as kooky hucksters.

Just the Surface
Obviously, a lot more can be said of all this; no doubt a weighty book or two. I've barely touched on any of this. I know I've only begun to research the Contactees; I have a lot to learn. I acknowledge I vacilate between the Contactee experience as being a true paranormal/Fortean experience, or a military/government mind game scenario (the abduction scenario being the sequel.) Either way, we owe it to UFOlogy to find out. Whatever the answer, ever since I first heard of the Contactees, I wondered, not "what the hell is wrong with these kooks?" but, "What has really happened to these people?"

Notes

Colin Bennett: Looking for Orthon

John Nebel: Contactees I Have Known
http://www.mimufon.org/1960%20articles/ContacteesIHaveKnown.htm

Daniel Brenton's Signal to Noise
http://www.danielbrenton.com/2007/12/10/signal-to-noise-adamski-and-the-contactees-reconsidered-part-1/

Wikipedia: Curtis Peebles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Peebles

Item on Trent/McMinville UFO Case

Over on AC, a new place I've signed up for. This article has to do with the 1950s UFO case in McMinnville, Oregon. Please take a look! Richell Hawks is also over there, and lots of other good things.

Ed Wood

Edward D. Wood, Jr.: Why if I had half a chance, I could make an entire movie using this stock footage. The story opens on these mysterious explosions. Nobody knows what's causing them, but it's upsetting all the buffalo. So, the military are called in to solve the mystery.
Editor on Studio Lot: You forgot the octopus.
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: No, no, I'm saving that for my big underwater climax.
~ from the movie Ed Wood

I have the habit of listening to music as I cook dinner. Tonight I was listening to the score from the movie Ed Wood (1994) starring Johnny Depp as Ed Wood and directed by Tim Burton. (I’m a fan of both Depp and Burton.) Both Depp and Burton did a great job, as always -- the movie was great, as well as the music.

Bunny Breckinridge: What about glitter? When I was a headliner in Paris, audiences always liked it when I sparkled.
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: No!
Bunny Breckinridge: Cat's Eyes.
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: No!
Bunny Breckinridge: Well, I'm going to need some antennae.
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: No! You're the ruler of the galaxy! Show a little taste! ~ Ed Wood, the movie

I had either forgotten or never looked, but assumed, as I was listening to the CD tonight, the music was composed by Danny Elfman, who composes most of Tim Burton’s work. I was surprised to see Elfman didn’t compose the scored to Ed Wood; it was Howard Shore.

Paula Trent: ...A flying saucer? You mean the kind from up there?
Jeff Trent: Yeah, either that or its counterpart. ~ Plan 9 From Outer Space

(I don’t know where my brain has been, but it’s only recently that I noticed the two character’s have the last name of Trent; a reference to Paul and Evelyn Trent of McMinnville, Oregon?)

Paula Trent: Now, don't you worry. The saucers are up there. The graveyard is out there. But I'll be locked up safely in there.

One of Ed Wood’s films was the horrible/delightfully charming/mess of a movie, Plan 9 From Outer Space. (1959) I can’t help myself, I watch it everytime it comes on. Plan 9 makes no sense, and has the corniest, cheesiest dialogue in flying saucer movie history. That’s what makes it so great to watch.

Ed Reynolds: Perfect? Mr. Wood, do you know anything about the art of film production?
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: Well, I like to think so.
Ed Reynolds: That cardboard headstone tipped over. This graveyard is obviously phony.
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture.
Ed Reynolds: The big picture?
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: Yes.
Ed Reynolds: Then how 'bout when the policemen arrived in daylight, but now it's suddenly night?
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: What do you know? Haven't you heard of suspension of disbelief?

And finally, be sure you heed the following advice:

Criswell: Perhaps, on your way home, someone will pass you in the dark, and you will never know it... for they will be from outer space! ~ Plan 9 From Outer Space

New book addresses WWII UFOs

This looks like an interesting book. Sigh, yet another book to add to the list! Stange Company: Military Encounters with UFOs in World War II by Keith Chester, published by Anomalist Books.

E.T. Sex Can Be Out Of This World

Yikes, this is an odd one, (that’s not a bad thing) from Nick Redfern. All about inter species sex between aliens and humans. One classic encounter being the liaison between Antonio Villas-Boas and an alien in 1957. Writes Redfern:

One of the most celebrated cases on record occurred in October 1957. Twenty-three-year-old Antonio Villas-Boas claimed he was taken aboard a UFO from his family’s farm in Brazil late one evening, whereupon he was introduced to a short, naked space-girl who made it very clear to the startled farmer what she wanted.

There was no “take me to your leader”-type nonsense in this encounter, however. No, it was just pure sex, throughout which, Villas-Boas said in a 1962 interview, the girl “growled like a dog.” Hey, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Nick, you cheeky bastard you!

Anyway, it’s true, as I’ve written before, the UFO phenomena is all about sex. We treat the subject of UFOs as something almost dirty; it illicits giggles and an embarrassment, the same kind of reaction middle schoolers (well, some anyway) have around sex. And many adults.

We exploit sex and use it to entice, sell things and seduce, but we won’t talk about it seriously. The same with UFOs; we joke, we use alien faces to sell everything from candy to skateboards, but we’re not going to talk seriously about aliens, abductions or UFOs, are we? Why, that’s crazy!

Sex with aliens, entities, even Bigfoot and other creatures, are a major part of the esoteric, and yet, it seems we continue to distance ourselves from the fact.

This item by Redfern however leaves no doubt about the relationship between humans and aliens!

Those Triangles

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?

A recent item from Not Your Grandfather’s UFO Blog: The Triangle and Rumors, about reports from the 1970s.
http://robert-barrow.blogspot.com/2007/12/triangle-and-rumors.html

Stanton Friedman and Frank Feschino Jr. on C2C

On Coast to Coast tonight, Stanton Friedman and Frank Feschino Jr. They'll be discussing planes that have disappeared in the 1950s, in flight accidents, etc. which they attribute to UFOs or flying saucers.

We all know who the great Stanton Friedman is of course. Feschino is author of Shoot Them Down! - The Flying Saucer Air Wars Of 1952

Beware the Counterfeit

The geniune and the fake . . .

Ed Komarek has a good article on the contactees and abductees on UFO Digest: Exopolitics: Counterfeit Contactees. Komarek not only gives a lot of historical background but gives us a fresh and insightful perspective, one that was a pleasant surprise. A lot to think about.

UFO Mystic: The Bowen Manuscript

Nick Redfern on the Bowen manuscript. . .

A limited edition of An Encyclopedia of Flying Saucers from 1957 is available.
Between 1957 and 1961, Bowen worked on his Flying Saucer manuscript and did something with it that few, if indeed anyone else has ever done: namely, before submitting it to a publisher, Bowen sent an original, typed version of it to the Air Force for review, and in an effort to ensure that its contents, as they related to the Air Force, were accurate.

And that’s when the manuscript vanished.

An Encyclopedia of Flying Saucers was never published. However, in 1999, a strange thing happened: the same, original, typed version of the manuscript that Bowen sent to the Air Force all those years before, turned up in the mail-box of none other than UFO researcher Timothy Cooper
There are ties to MJ - !2 and as Redfern writes, there’s sure to be even more controversy about not only MJ-12, but Bowen’s book as well.

Nick Redfern and Incident at Aztec

Nick Redfern, crypto Fortean UFO writer and blogger, wrote a piece for Fortean Times back in 2004 on the UFO event at Aztec.

1948, Aztec, New Mexico: four flying saucers crashed, along with alien bodies. Frank Scully wrote about this in Behind the Flying Saucers (1950.) This is an important part of UFO history of course, but not for the reasons those unfamiliar with this event might think.

Read Redfern’s article here. (Link via Redfern’s blog Saucers, Spies and Spooks.

UFO Paradigm Probe: For Whom the Bell Tolls (Nazis, UFOs and post WWII history)

UFO Paradigm Probe brings us Part one of
For Whom the Bell Tolls, about Operation Paperclip, Nazis and UFOs. But it’s much more than that; this isn’t some hokey semi-paranoid sleazy tabloid nazis and the flying saucers routine.

As always, well thought out, lots of images, and a blend of the personal and historical. The writing style might turn some readers off, it is on the academic side (and, um, I know I have my writing problems, but he does tend to write long run on sentences that might, at first, make you want to clutch your head, but just do a Zen thing and let it flow, kind of like free form poetry, and you’ll be all right.)

Please Help to Save These Cats From Certain Death

This is sad and sickening, very disheartening. Please sign the petition. Read more on Siani’s Pot-Pourri; it’ll just take you a couple of mintues to do something from your computer. Please take the time.
http://sianikatts-gower.blogspot.com/2007/12/help-save-cats-from-certain-death.html

A Conversation with Coral Lorenzen

Coral Lorenzen, along with husband Jim started APRO in 1952, a UFO (or flying saucer) research organization. In A Conversation with Coral Lorenzen, Robert Barrow (Not Your Grandfather's UFO blog) relates a conversation he had with Coral in 1976.

Saucer Homes

In the 1960s and 1970s, "saucer homes" UFO shaped fiber glass houses designed by a Finnish archetect, were popular. Here's a news item on the homes. Pretty cool! They didn't seem to take off however, and according to the news item, there are only about 300 of these in the U.S.

Mysteries From Beyond Earth (1975) movie trailer

A real medley of weirdness from Retroflicks.com in this Mysteries From Beyond Earth, hosted by Lawrence Dobkin from the 1970s. 'Are UFOs dumping Bigfoot here?" lol. Stanton Friedman's even on this one!

In UFO Magazine: Redfern Interviews Fowler

I'm a little late in catching up on my esoteric/UFO material, including UFO Magazine. (And that's considering I have a column in the magazine!) But in the October issue of UFO Magazine, is a great interview with Ray Fowler, conducted by crypto-esoteric writer Nick Redfern.

There's so much interesting material in this interview, I urge you to try to get a copy of the issue.

For those who may not know, Fowler brought the Betty Andreasson case to our attention with The Andreasson Affair: The Documented Investigation of a Woman's Abduction Aboard a UFO (1980)

Mixed Motif Reports
As any student of the esoteric knows, a lot of the flying saucer/UFO phenomenon includes things that "shouldn't be there," with a mixed up scene of weird beings, telepathic communications, OBEs, NDEs, spiritual or religious moments of awe, renewed or newly found creative abilities, healing powers, cryptid type creatures,ghost type or haunting type experiences, and much more that transcends a mere nuts and bolts flying saucer craft from outer space.

Fowler has an idea about that. He refers us to Dr. Kenneth Ring, who called this medley of weirdness "mixed motif reports." Fowler believes all these things are connected; of the same source, and they or it has the same goal as far as we humans are concerned.

1947 and 1953
Fowler mentions seeing a "flying disk" in July of 1947 in Massachusetts. In 1953, Fowler investigated a crashed saucer event in Kingman, Arizona.

If you haven't read the interview yet, try to get a copy. It's particularly interesting to read Fowler's theories on what "they" are, and what "they" are doing.

Nick Redfern: Saucer-Spooks

Nick Redfern, with Saucer-Spooks, on UFO Mystic.

Movie: Creation of the Humanoids

I remember this movie, and how absolutely creepy it made me feel. I didn't like this movie at all. I was around eleven or twelve when I first saw it. It'd be interesting to see what I think of it now.

The site CyberPunk Review.com, has an extremely thorough and thoughtful piece on this movie.

Gulf Breeze

The date for the Gulf Breeze sightings is a little later than I usually comment on, (I have, as my arbitrary cut off date, 1980) but I think the events at Gulf Breeze are interesting enough that it’s worth revisiting.


Here’s an article, link found on UFO Review, from the Miami Herald:GULF BREEZE: Town recalls heyday of UFO sightings
Two decades ago, the area around the Florida Panhandle town of Gulf Breeze was the center of sightings of unidentified flying objects, byline Dusty Ricketts.

County Commissioner John Broxson saw something in Gulf Breeze in 1987:
Something bright was hovering above his home, a parade of lights of different colors and intensity. He quickly had his wife, Christina, and their friends come out to see it for themselves. No one knew what they were watching.

The unidentified flying object hovered for several moments before quickly flying straight until it was out of sight.

As the article points out, Ed Walters wasn’t the only witness to the UFO sightings. Hundreds of witnesses saw these things.

Between 1987 and the end of 1993, when most of the sightings ended, Ware said hundreds of people reported seeing UFOs in Gulf Breeze. Walters and others took more than 125 photographs of supposed UFOs just between Nov. 11, 1987, and May 1, 1988, Ware said.

The distraction of “proving” or debunking Walters, from his character to the model of a flying saucer found in his home, doesn’t address the real issues surrounding the Gulf Breeze events.

Walters described weird beeping, electronic type noises coming from one of the robotic type “aliens” he saw. It reminds me of older cases in many ways; of humanoids and robotic beings, of Mothman type electronic sounds. In other weird events, like some Hairy Biped encounters, strange beeping or electronic sounds occur.

As already mentioned; hundreds of witnesses observed UFOs in the area at the time.

Many of the images Walters took of the UFOs are similar to the clunky flying saucers from the 1950s, like Adamski’s images.


Walter's UFOs

Contactee George Adamski's flying saucer, 1952

The paper model of the UFO found in Walter’s home after he moved out seems ridiculous; why leave such damning evidence behind? Why stick it where it wouldn’t be easily found, yet found it was?

Then there was the strange story that appeared in the news around the same time; something about three (if I remember it right) G.I.’s who went “crazy,” and talked about UFOs, among other things. There was a Gulf Breeze connection there; I don’t know if they were from Gulf Breeze, or went there on a “mission” listening to some voice they heard, or what. I tried to find some links to this but didn’t find anything. (Plus, I was in a hurry.) If anyone recognizes what I’m talking about, I’d appreciate the info.

As far as hoaxes go, the article quotes Barry Karr, Director of CSI (formerly CSICOP) who supports the late Philip Klass’s belief Gulf Breeze sightings were a hoax:

'I really don't think there's any question the Gulf Breeze sightings were a hoax,'' Karr said.`There are things in the sky that can't be identified, especially near an air base. Just because it can't be identified doesn't mean it's a visitor from another planet.''

This is typical chronic skeptic disingenuousness; while it’s true that it’s an assumption, and only an assumption, that these UFOs and entities are extraterrestrial, there’s still a whole lot of strange things going on that validate investigation.

(I also wonder at Karr’s syntax: he says “there’s (no) question the Gulf Breeze sightings were a hoax,” which implies intentional deception, but in the same breath says “There are things in the sky that can’t be identified, especially near an air base. Just because it can't be identified doesn't mean it's a visitor from another planet.''
Which is it, a hoax, or misidentifications, or misperceptions, of military craft? It’s as if Karr is trying to cover all bases; hoax, assumptions, misinterpretations/misidentifications -- it’s all bunk, no matter the reason. Just dazzle them with blanket dismissal and move on.)


Personally, I think the entire Gulf Breeze events were military experiments on an entire town, and Ed Walters was their prime guinea pig. If this is true, it’s almost as astounding as entities from outer space. To brush the thing off as mere lights in the sky that can’t be identified ignores this possibility.

Sources
Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/317768.htm
UFO Casebook
http://www.ufocasebook.com/gulfbreeze.html
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Adamski

Clarification: Brad Steiger's World's Before Our Own

Received a very nice email from Patrick Huyghe, of Anomalist books, thanking me for the link to Brad Steiger's book, (with a nice compliment on this blog!) Very much appreciated.

Although, I had given the wrong link yesterday; the link I gave was this, to the Anomalist news site. The link for the Anomalist books page is here.

Plan 9 From Outer Space - Best Lines

What can I say? We all know Plan 9 From Outer Space is infamously, wonderfully awful that it’s a classic. Classically awful, but I watch it everytime. It’s all so wacky.

This clip is a compilation of dialogue from the film.

I like the “electro gun,” and the tantrum throwing alien, who by the way, we can tell is an alien because of his shiny shirt who cries: “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

Enjoy!

Stanton Friedman and Kathleen Marden: Captured!

A new look at a classic case. . .

Stan Friedman and Kathleen Marden’s book Captured! is the next book on my list. Captured!, for those who don’t know, is the book about the Barney and Betty Hill UFO encounter and alien abduction that made international news in 1961.

This new book promises to be interesting for a lot of reasons; one, Kathleen Marden is Betty Hill’s niece, and a UFO researcher in her own right. And knowing Friedman’s patient, stick to the facts against all “noisy negativists” odds, this book, I’m sure, will be both enjoyable reading for flying saucer junkies like myself, as well as highlighting the facts of the event.

I’m looking forward to reading it.

Brad Steiger: Worlds Before Our Own

A reprint of a classic by one of the best in the field. . .

Esoteric author Brad Steiger (who is one of the writers in this field who very definitely believes in the Trickster aspect of anomalous phenomena) has a new book out. Actually, it’s a reprint of his book: Worlds Before Our Own, which was first published in 1978. The book has recently been reprinted by Anomalist Books.

You can read about the book’s history by Steiger on UFO Digest:Worlds Before Our Own.

Cover Artist Walter Popp

The artist often goes unoticed, even as we use and admire their art. Here’s one artist of those great covers, Walter Popp.

I found this link while looking for an image to go with a post over at OrangeOrb. And this image:

well, what can we say? We can get all feminist didatic about this, and with good reason. We can just admire it; depending on your gender and or preference. We can do a whole pop culture thing. Lots of ways to go with this one.

Redfern, Komarek : George Adamski

The Contactees Weren't Just Kooks

I’m a defender of the Contactees, the George Adamski's of the world. It isn’t so simple, to just brush them off as endearing (or not so endearing, depending on your perspective) kooks. Many on both sides of that rickety UFO fence consider the Contactees, such as Adamski, Daniel Fry, Van Tassel, and so on as an embarrassment. Some may look upon them as quaint; maybe not so embarrassing, but not to be taken seriously, either.

I take them very seriously. I suspect there was a lot more going on with the Contactees than meets (met?) the eye.

Colin Bennett’s book Looking for Orthon is a good book to read about George Adamski in particular, and the flying saucer Contactees American culture vibe of the times.

Nick Redfern, in his blog entry Blasts from the Past, on UFO Mystic writes:

Is all this harking back to the days of yesteryear mere coincidence or are the dastardly Greasy about to go belly-up? Surely this evolutionary decline they’re supposedly on has been going on for far too long now. Are they about to give way to their long-haired, blonde ancestors and their absurdly shiny saucers?
Interesting observation and question! Maybe something is about to turn . . .

Nick points to Ed Komarek’s
The 1950s Contactees Movement Revisited, (Part 2) which is very interesting. Komarek is into the exopolitics aspect (his blog is Exopolitics: The Study of the Politics of Extraterrestrial Contact ) of UFOs; I’m not sure I agree completely with him on some things but that’s beside the point.

I agree with Komarek and others about one thing though: it’s important for anyone interested in the UFOs of today to take a look back at the UFOs past. It’s folklore (not to be misused or synonymous with “falsehoods”) and history, and we’d miss out on a lot by forgetting about these past events. And we might miss out on what’s right in front of us, if we’re unaware of went before.

Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody

What does this have to do with anything related to Vintage UFO? Stay tuned. . .

The Day the Earth Stood Still

The Day the Earth Stood Still
Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!

A classic film; one of my favorites. I love this movie. Made in 1951, directed by Robert Wise, and starring Michael Rennie as Klaatu, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, (Who was Dr. David Zorba in the series Ben Casey, M.D.) Billy Gray and Frances Bavier (Aunt Bea from The Andy Griffith Show)this movie remains one of the great movies of all time.

A remake is in production now. As a film buff (coming from circus, movie, and vaudeville folk -- and growing up in Hollywood -- ) I take things way too seriously when it comes to things like remakes of classic movies. What’s the point? Not often are the remakes an improvement. But that’s debatable, and putting that aside, there are some things that are classics and just shouldn’t be touched. Like covers of the Righteous Brothers Unchained Melody, some things just shouldn't be redone. Ever. For any reason. As tempting as doing the greatest version ever of Unchained Melody is (and there’s a hell of a chanteuse inside me belting out that song that brings the world to its knees, dahlings!) everyone needs to resist that temptation and just not do it. (Although I will say U2's version is pretty neat; but it's not the same. Just not the same. . .)




Anyway. Remake of the movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still. New version stars Keanu Reeves,Jennifer Connelly and Kathy Bates and directed by Scott Derrickson. It's in production now, filming in Vancouver and British Columbia, Canada. The U.S. release date is December, 2008.

Here are a few quotes I like from the film:

Mr. Harley: Your impatience is quite understandable.
Klaatu: I'm impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it.
Mr. Harley: I'm afraid my people haven't. I'm very sorry... I wish it were otherwise.

Barnhardt: Have you tested this theory?
Klaatu: I find it works well enough to get me from one planet to another.

Klaatu: You have faith, Professor Barnhardt?
Barnhardt: It isn't faith that makes good science, Mr. Klaatu, it's curiosity. Sit down, please. There are several thousand questions I'd like to ask you.

Klaatu: I am fearful when I see people substituting fear for reason.

Bobby Benson: Is it different where you've been? Don't they have places like this?
Klaatu: Well, they have cemeteries, but not like this one. You see, they don't have any wars.
Bobby Benson: Gee, that's a good idea.

Suggested links:

The Day the Earth Stood Still
alansmithee.5u.com/.../scifi/1951/dess.html

Internet Movie Database
http://www.imdb.com/