1952.11.20
12.05c
George Adamski was an amateur astronomer who lived near the Mount Palomar Hale observatory in California. On 20 November 1952 he and six friends [the Williamsons and the Baileys] drove deep into the Californian desert where they believed they had a better chance of seeing and photographing unidentified flying objects which had been reported in the area. Adamski, a Polish-born United States citizen who was then aged 61, claimed that their curiosity was rewarded by the sight of a fat cigar-shaped ship floating in the sky.
Adamski, who was enjoying a picnic with his friends when the sighting occurred, got a member of the party to drive him closer to the spot where he believed a craft might land.
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
They noticed a cigar-shaped object which was chased away by military jets – but not before it had ejected a silver disc which landed some distance away.
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
Speaking later on behalf of the group, he later said they believed that the cigar-shaped vessel was a mothership and that any smaller craft which might land on earth would come from its belly.
… Adamski persuaded his friends to leave him with cameras and a telescope, arguing that, alone, he had more chance of getting photographic evidence than if they were all together in a pack.
Adamski claimed that he did indeed see a flying saucer come from the mothership, circle overhead, then drop out of sight. He had concluded that it must have returned to the command vessel when he spotted a man standing at the entrance to a ravine some distance away. Thinking the person could be in trouble alone in the desert, he made tracks towards him – and encountered, he said, a Venusian space traveller.
Adamski later wrote: “Suddenly, as though a veil were removed from my mind, the feeling of caution left me so completely that I was no longer aware of my friends or whether they were observing me as they had been told to do. By this time we were quite close. He took four steps towards me, bringing us within arm’s length of each other. Now, for the first time, I fully realised that I was in the presence of a man from space – a human being from another world.”
He reckoned the creature to be about 1.7 metres/5.5 feet in height, of human form, aged about 28 in human terms, with a high forehead, large grey-green eyes, high cheekbones and fine white teeth which flashed when he smiled.
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
The man was… of average weight and appeared youthful. He had… long flowing blond hair and tanned skin. He was wearing a one-piece brown ski-type suit and oxblood coloured shoes resembling sandals.
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
Communication was difficult as the spaceman spoke no English. Nevertheless, using sign language and what Adamski described as “primitive telepathy”, the duo made themselves understood up to a point. Adamski said the visitor was concerned about the Earth’s radiation and its nuclear weapons, which were disturbing the balance of the universe.
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
The alien… informed Adamski that Earth was being visited by races from other planets in the solar system and beyond.
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
As they talked, the Venusian gestured to the mothership, indicating that it was time for the discussion to end and for him to leave. Adamski said he gave the Venusian a photographic plate of his craft, which he had taken when he was left alone by his friends. After promising to return, the spaceman departed and Adamski rejoined his companions.
What made Adamski‘s account seem somewhat plausible at the time was the fact that it was witnessed by his friends, who later signed sworn statements that they had seen [with binoculars from a mile away] Adamski in conversation with the extraterrestrial, and that they witnessed both his flying saucer and the mothership.
Adamski… went on to make a series of other… claims. [He claimed] to have met two emissaries of Mars and Saturn at a Los Angeles hotel and to have visited the moon, finding it to possess a lush area of vegetation and animals…
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
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Although there had been flying saucer sightings for many years… this was the first claim of contact between man and alien.
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
In the 1950s space exploration had hardly begun, and little was known even about our nearest neighbours. The contactees encountered extraterrestrials from planets in our own solar system – humanoid beings who apparently lived on Venus, Mars, Saturn and Neptune. It was conceivable at that time, because mankind was yet to learn how inhospitable these planets really are. Does this make the contactees tall-storytellers, or, as some ufologists believe, were the contactees being lied to? …
In his defence, even sceptics were impressed with Adamski‘s apparent sincerity. Science journalist Robert Chapman wrote in UFO – Flying Saucers over Britain: “Adamski was so damnably normal and this was the overall impression I carried away. He believed he had made contact with a man from Venus, and he did not see why anyone should disbelieve him. I told myself that if he was deluded he was the most lucid and intelligent man I had met”…
On his first trip into space Adamski observed “manifestations taking place all around us, as though billions upon billions of fireflies were flickering everywhere…” This is not something that would readily emerge from the imagination to be included in a space yarn. When astronaut John Glenn orbited Earth on 20 February 1962, he commented that “a lot of the little things I thought were stars were actually a bright yellowish green about the size and intensity as looking at a firefly on a real dark night… There were literally thousands of them”. Russian cosmonauts reported the same phenomenon, which turned out to be caused by billions of reflective dust particles. How could George Adamski have guessed that? …
Many commentators poured scorn on the names of George Adamski’s extraterrestrial brothers – Orthon, Ashtar, Firkon and Kalna. But Adamski claimed they did not have names: they were an invention of his ghost writer to make the story more digestible to the public. One wonders just how much of the original story was sacrificed for commercial reasons.
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
[Where in the desert Adamski and his companions went is not known to LUFORU. The pointer below indicates a possible area only.]