I am George Adamski, philosopher, student, teacher, saucer researcher. My home is Palomar Gardens, on the southern slopes of Mount Palomar, California, eleven miles from the big Hale Observatory, home of the 200-inch telescope—the world’s largest. And to correct a widespread error let me say here, I am not and never have been associated with the staff of the Observatory. I am friendly with some of the staff members, but I do not work at the Observatory.
At Palomar Gardens I have my own two telescopes. Both are Newtonian reflectors. One, a 15-inch, is housed under a dome, while the other, a 6-inch professional type made by the Tinsley Laboratory, is mounted out in the open. Thus it is easily and quickly turned in any direction. Also it is easily removed from its stationary mounting and capable of being taken wherever I desire. For such occasions I have a tripod on which I mount it. Also for this little telescope I have a camera which I can quickly attach over the eyepiece. Prior to my photographing the saucers I used this arrangement for celestial photography. However, I am not a professional photographer.
This little telescope was given to me about twenty years ago by a friend and student. And skywatching and telescopic photography then became a fascinating pastime. Then came the saucers. Since then it has become a full-time—and somewhat costly—occupation.
For the greater part of my life I have believed that other planets are inhabited. And I have pictured them as ‘class rooms‘ for our experience and development; as the ‘many mansions‘ of the vast universe. However, I had never given too much thought to the idea of inter-planetary travel in man-made ships. This subject had never entered my mind until late in 1946. I, too believed the distances between planets to be too great for spanning by mechanical constructions. But during the meteoric shower on 9 October 1946 I actually saw with my naked eyes a gigantic space craft hovering high above the mountain ridge to the south of Mount Palomar, toward San Diego. Yet I did not realise at the time what I was seeing. As many of us will remember, people everywhere were asked to watch the heavens that night and count the numbers of meteors falling per minute.
This we were doing at Palomar Gardens. When, suddenly, after the most intense part of the shower was over and we were about to go indoors, we all noticed high in the sky a large black object, similar in shape to a gigantic dirigible, and apparently motionless.
Pic. 10
The scene of the meeting with the Venusian. The Venusian ship is visible between the hills
Pic. 11
Adamski's photographic plate returned on December 13, 1952, by the Venusian, covered with strange writing
I noticed that no cabin compartment or external appendages were visible, but I figured that during the war some new types of aircraft had been developed and that this was one of them. My calculation was that it was up there to study the falling meteors at that high altitude, so I gave no further thought to it, except to wonder why it was so totally dark. While we were still watching, it pointed its nose upward and quickly shot up into space, leaving a fiery trail behind it which remained visible for a good five minutes.
Still thinking nothing of it, we all returned into the house and turned on the radio to a San Diego station where a newscast was being given. All of us were surprised and incredulous as we listened to the announcer say that a large cigar-shaped space ship had hovered over San Diego during the shower and that hundreds of people had seen and reported it. The description tallied with what we had seen.
Even then it was hard to accept, or to believe that we had actually seen a ship from another world. In fact, I refused to accept it fully until a few weeks later when in the cafe one Sunday a group of people from San Diego were telling me of the big space ship they had seen during the meteoric shower. I was trying very hard to discredit the whole thing, basing it on recognised distances between Earth and other planets, and speeds as known by us. I brought up the time element and pressures which a human body can endure. From all known figures, inter-planetary travel was impossible in any human life span.
During this discussion six military officers who were sitting at another table listened intently to all points brought up. Then one of them spoke up and said, ‘It is not as fantastic as it sounds. We know something about this.’ I immediately asked what knowledge they had, but they would not reveal it. Yet they assured us all that the ship we had seen and were discussing was not of this world. Naturally this made me take more stock in the situation, since my one desire at all times has always been to know the truth. Consequently, I began to observe the skies more closely, hoping that, since it had happened before, this amazing sight might come again. During the summer of 1947 there began to be much discussion of flying saucers, but it was not until August of that year that I finally was rewarded for my steady watching.
One Friday evening I sat by myself out in the yard swing, watching the sky in all directions. Suddenly a bright light object appeared, moving through the sky from east to west above the mountain ridge to the south. And then another ! and another ! !
Not realising that this was what I had been waiting and hoping for for so long, I sat watching and wondering. I quickly discarded the idea of these lights being a beacon light. There was no light beam visible with these light objects, and they were moving differently from any beacon I had ever seen. And I have seen a lot of beacons. Suddenly one of the objects stopped in mid-space and reversed its path of travel, and I said to myself, ‘This must be what they call a flying saucer’.
I then called to the four persons indoors to come out and see what was going on. We began to count. Our total count was 184. The objects were passing in single file, but appeared to be moving in squadrons of thirty-two. We noticed this definitely, since the leader of each group would travel half the way, or better, then reverse almost to the eastern horizon as if in a signal, and thirty-two more—one by one—would pass, as if in review. They seemed to follow a rather definite path, except that some disappeared in the west, while others banked and turned toward the south. As they banked, we noticed the objects appeared to have a ring around a central body, or dome.
As the last one passed, it stopped for several seconds in mid-space and shot out two powerful beams of light—one towards the South and San Diego, the other north toward Mount Palomar. Then it continued on its way, and we didn’t see any more.
At that time a young Soil Conservation employee, one Tony Belmonte, was living in his trailer on the property here. He was rabidly sceptical on the subject of space ships or any such craft moving through our atmosphere. Many times he had expressed his opinion that anyone believing in such things should have his head examined. So we seldom discussed the subject. But on the following morning—Saturday—he came in and asked me if I had seen any flying saucers the night before.
Knowing his attitude on the subject, I asked him what he was up to.
He replied, ‘No, George. I mean it ! I am serious ! Did you see any of them last night ?’
I answered, ‘If that is the way you feel about it, yes ! We here all saw them."
‘How many did you see ?" was his next question.
‘We counted 184,’ I said, ‘although I know there were more because we didn’t start counting at the beginning.’
Then he told me that at the Dempsey Ranch in Pauma Valley, on the west side of Palomar, a group of men were sitting outdoors discussing business matters. He was one of them. And all of these men watched this phenomenon in the sky. They had counted 204 of the objects.
From then on Tony Belmonte was a believer in flying saucers. But he was not fully convinced of their other-world origin since he thought they might have been some government experimental craft.
Shortly after he left, two scientists on their way to the big Observatory on top of Mount Palomar came in and asked me the same question Mr. Belmonte had asked. I told them the number we had counted. They said the number was not right, as though they knew the exact number. When I told them of the other number reported by Belmonte, they said that was more nearly correct. Then I knew that they, too, had observed what had taken place the night before. They would divulge little more than to assure me that all indications pointed to them being inter-planetary, because they did not belong to our government. This spurred me on to more continuous watching than ever, but without much success.
Then late in 1949 four men came into the cafe at Palomar Gardens. Two of them had been in before and we had talked a little about the flying saucers. This day it was around noon, and raining—really pouring. They ordered some lunch and we began talking about flying saucers again. One of these men was Mr. J. P. Maxfield, and another was his partner, Mr. G. L. Bloom, both of the Point Loma Navy Electronics Laboratory near San Diego. The other two men were from a similar setup in Pasadena. One was in officer’s uniform.
They asked me if I would co-operate with them in trying to get photographs of strange craft moving through space, since I had smaller instruments than those at the big Observatory. I could manœuvre mine more easily than those on top could be moved, especially my 6-incher, which was without a dome. I could point it much as pointing a gun at ducks.
My 15-incher under a dome would not be of so much help since the ships moved fairly fast through space and there usually was not time to move both dome and telescope.
They said they were going up to the top and ask for the same co-operation from the men at the big Observatory.
I asked them then where I should look to be most likely to see the strange objects which they were asking me to try to photograph. We discussed the pros and cons of the possibility of bases being on the moon for inter-planetary craft. And finally the moon was decided upon as a good spot for careful observation.
By now the idea of space craft was not fantastic to me. For during the thirty years I have been a teacher as well as a student of philosophy, seeking an ever-greater understanding of the Laws of the Universe, I have become convinced that it was only logical that other planets throughout the universe should be inhabited by beings very much like ourselves—probably different mostly in stages of development only. And my personal observations— though few—combined with logic made me realise that with a more scientifically-advanced people on other planets, interplanetary travelling was definitely within the realms of possibility.
Thus, when the military requested my co-operation in trying to photograph strange objects moving through space, with the aid of my 6-inch telescope, I was more than willing.
So I bought some new film and got all of my equipment in readiness to comply with their request And it was not too long after this meeting that I succeeded in getting what I deemed at ‘the time to be two good pictures of an object moving through space. I first saw it as I was observing the moon.
I cannot remember the exact day except that it was during the time radio reports were being broadcast of a flying saucer landing in Mexico City. I had just tuned in the 4 p.m. news from KMPC, Beverly Hills, California, when Mr. Bloom stepped into the place. He sat down beside me, next to the radio, and told me to be quiet and listen. After it was over, he made an odd remark. ‘They did not give all of the truth. There was more than that to it.’
Then I knew that he knew more about it, but he would not talk. We visited for a few minutes and just before he left, 1 handed him the two photographs which I had taken. I asked him to pass them on to Mr. Maxfield for examination and for the records. He said he would.
The story of the Mexican landing was squashed. But in 1951 I met some government men from Mexico and I asked them about that incident. They told me that a space ship had landed as reported. It was all true, but when the incident became known, the Mexican people were so superstitious they feared that the end of the world was coming. Then the government had to do something to reverse the panic that was rising. And the story as given to me was that they reported to their people that it was an American guided missile which ran out of control and fell there. That quieted them.
On 21 March 1950, some time after I had given these first two pictures to Mr. Bloom, I gave a lecture on flying saucers to the Everyman’s Club in La Mesa, California. Sanford Jarrell, of the then daily San Diego Journal, was a reporter on the scene. Incidentally, he gave this lecture a front-page report in his paper the next day. Before the lecture he discussed the subject with me and asked many questions. But nothing was said or was later published about the two pictures of mine at the Electronics Laboratory. Yet on the 22nd, after the Journal carried the story of my lecture, the San Diego Union and Tribune contacted me to what I had caught.
Naturally they were putting me ‘on the spot’, so I had to admit that I had sent such pictures to the Laboratory for analysis as to what I had caught.
The paper tried to get information from the Naval Laboratory, but the personnel there staunchly denied ever receiving any such photographs. And for a week the papers carried articles about my pictures which I claimed to have sent to the Laboratory, and which allegedly had never reached there. But I was not worried about all this confusion at the time, for I had the negatives. I had sent only prints. So I sat down and waited. The newspaper men were persistent and finally asked information from the Pentagon.
On 29 March, by way of the Copley Press Leased Wire from Washington, the Air Force denied knowledge of the pictures and stated that they were a ‘little sceptical’ since they had not received the pictures nor any word of them, and that they did not ‘subscribe to the theory that flying saucers are interplanetary missiles’. They went on to say that ‘all such reports of "phenomena" are channelled to the Air Force‘... for... ‘the Air Force still investigates reports of "aerial phenomena".’
This statement by them—three months after Project Saucer was supposed to have been discontinued !
Yet on 4 April the San Diego Tribune-Sun carried the following:
‘A picture George Adamski, amateur astronomer, sent to the Naval Electronics Laboratory for an opinion on whether it bore the image of a space ship has been found and the opinion is "No !"—or is it ?’ And a long article followed.
After this, of course, I really set to work watching and photographing. But no longer did I turn over any of my pictures to the Laboratory. And they did not stop in for them any more. But nearly all of my pictures, including the very last ones, are in the hands of the Air Force, since they have asked all citizens to report any sightings made. Thus I am co-operating, as are others throughout the nation. But they never reply in any way.
Since then, winter and summer, day and night, through heat and cold, winds, rains, and fog, I have spent every moment possible outdoors watching the skies for space craft and hoping without end that for some reason, some time, one of them would come in close, and even land. I have always felt that if the pilot within one of these ships would come out and we could meet, there would be a way for us to understand one another, even though our words might be different. And I have thought, too, that it would be interesting to take a ride in one of these craft. It would not matter too much where they took me, nor even whether they brought me back to Earth. I have become very much interested in learning more about them and their ways of living.
As a result of these years of constant watching for space craft, I have developed the habit of always looking up—for it is there I see the ships from other worlds. And I wouldn’t even guess at the number of them I have seen during this time.
A number of my friends have also developed the same habit and they, too, see the space craft—sometimes singly, sometimes in groups. These ships are there and they can be seen by those who look up whenever they are out of doors—not always, but sooner or later the searcher will be rewarded. Naturally, open country districts afford best viewing for sky watching, but they have been seen over large cities and over all the U.S.A., as well as over other nations.
But taking pictures of these objects is not an easy task. No matter how good a camera one has, with the fastest film obtainable, unless the craft is orbiting or hovering one cannot be sure that one will get anything at all on his negative.
During the year of 1950 and until the spring of 1951 the rewards for constant watching were slim and somewhat unconvincing to anyone who did not want to believe in such things. For during this whole time I was able to photograph only white spots far out in space. I did not get even one picture with any definite form. Although as I watched steadily I saw endless numbers of strange flashes that looked to me to be very far out from the Earth. My eyes became accustomed to them and I learned to recognise them even when I saw them in the daytime. During this time I took a couple hundred or more shots of these flashes, especially when I noticed them to be close to the moon, or, as oft-times happened, right ‘on’ the moon.
However, most of these were failures with only four or five that I felt were good enough to save. On the other hand, these pictures, even though I discarded them, were sufficient to prove to me that something was moving out there—intelligently controlled, yet not of Nature’s making.
And I knew nothing had been developed on Earth to go out that far—at least not in the numbers I was seeing. This alone was sufficient to urge my perseverance in watching, always in the hope that they would come closer and I then would be able to get some good photos of them.
Night after night I stayed outdoors watching the heavens. The stars sparkled in friendly brilliance during the long winter nights and the winds roared over the mountain tops, sounding like heavy freight trains rolling down a steep incline, or like the clatter of an approaching street car on metal rails in the city. Then as nearby trees bowed before them, the cold winds wrapped me round and seemed to penetrate to the very marrow of my bones. And steaming cups of hot coffee were incapable of warming me. Once I caught such a cold that it took me many weeks to recover, but still I persisted. The saucers were a challenge and I could not stop.
But there were wonderful nights, too, when the air was warm, and summer skies sparkled overhead. The breezes in the treetops whispered melodies and an occasional bird asleep on some branch would waken, twitter a moment and return again to the silence of slumber. Often during the spring and summer nights an owl would break the spell of still beauty with its hoot—and then an answering hoot—sometimes close by, sometimes far away.
Coyotes, too, added their sharp barks, especially during the nights of the full moon, and almost instantly the night air was filled with answering barks and bays of the mountain dogs, who will not be quieted until the yaps of the coyotes have ceased.
Yes... there have been nights of magic to recompense for those of discomfort as I continued my watch for the mysterious saucers.
The summer and fall of 1951 and the year 1952 were much more satisfying in the number of photographs I was able to get. The space craft seemed to be moving in closer to Earth, and in increasing numbers. As a result I got a number of good photographs showing well outlined forms—but not much detail.
As I continued watching steadily day and night, I found that cloudy weather was better for getting close-up pictures than clear weather. And I reasoned that the personnel was able to observe the Earth as well as they desired from a far distance in clear weather, but in foggy or stormy weather they had to come closer, and often, maybe by accident, they dropped below the clouds as they moved above the Earth. Maybe they were studying the consistency of the clouds and analysing pressures and other atmospheric conditions at those times. I do not know.
During this time I took something like 500 photographs. But barely a dozen of them turned out good enough to preserve as proofs that these craft were different from recognised Earth craft. While their numbers and frequencies of appearance took them out of my military experimental category
Moreover, reports of sightings of these strange craft came from almost every nation on the Earth, and no government would send its experimental aircraft over another nation’s territory. That, for many reasons, is a recognised fact.
On the other hand, if these were secret experimental military developments, I would not have been allowed to copyright my photographs and send them so publicly through the mails. And I sent a set of them to the Wright-Paterson Air Force Base. In the interest of national security they would have stopped me, if I was photographing our own secret craft. They never have.
Ever since I became convinced of the reality of space craft moving through outer space and through our atmosphere, observing movements on Earth, I have discussed the subject with all who were interested. There have always been a few people who have believed such phenomena to be within the realm of logic and possibility. But, too, there have been many scoffers. And here I want to discuss this phase.
Although I have lived in America since I was one year old, I still have an accent. And I have no college degrees. Then, too, there is much manual labour to be done around Palomar Gardens, and I do it. Some people cannot associate such things with a scientific atmosphere, nor see that the practical can make a very steady basis for scientific and philosophical outreaching. So they try to discredit me. But I have never been deterred.
In 1949 I began being asked to talk before Service Clubs and other groups. I accepted these invitations because they afforded me an opportunity to tell more people about our visitors from other worlds. I have continued this lecturing ever since.
These trips involved me in travelling expenses, but I learned that most Service Clubs have no speaker fund and more often than not I was not paid for these lectures. A few gave me five or ten dollars, and one or two gave 25 dollars, but there has not been a year yet that such payments have covered the expenses of my lecture trips.
Yet I continued because I felt that the people must be told about these space craft that were moving through our atmosphere in ever-increasing numbers.
As I began to get good photographs, I had enlargements made and used them in support of my lectures. They were visible and actual proof of my declarations as to the reality of craft other than our own moving above us.
Not even half of the people believed me. Yet these lectures were serving their purpose. They were getting the people to talking and thinking about space craft. And they were getting people to look up more than they had ever done before. So, I continued.
An article in Fate helped me financially, and it too reached many people who otherwise might not have become interested in the saucers, I am still getting letters from people who first heard of me through that article in July, 1951.
People wanted prints of the pictures I had taken, so I had some made up and set a nominal price on them. Here was the first opportunity I had to let the saucers at least help to pay some of the large expense I had been put to in trying to photograph them and prove their reality.
So, I was then charged with ‘commercialising’.
I realise that it is hard for the average person who has given little or no thought to such things to believe that a man can go and photograph space ships from other worlds.
‘He must be fooling the people ! Such things just don’t happen that way !’
However, my negatives have always been available for examination by responsible persons and have often been examined. Without exception, examination has proved the genuineness of my pictures. The photographer who does my finishing is Mr. D. J. Detwiler, who lives in Carlsbad, California, about 40 miles from Palomar Gardens, and he is available for questioning.
Yet all kinds of discrediting stories have seeped back to me, coming from scientists and others. Apparently it was presumptious of me to even expect people to believe that my pictures were genuine. Some duplicate defects in the background of more than one picture would be pointed out and supposedly this proved that superimposing was being done. I was ‘making these pictures up !’
But why ? Everyone must have some motive !
Well, it would help our restaurant business and draw many curious patrons there. They did not stop to reason that if this were the purpose how much more sensible it would have been for me to spend all that time, and all that money, in legitimate advertising and promoting work !
This is a sample of some of the discrediting arguments used by minds who could not be dislodged from old ways of thinking, despite the fact that sightings were being reported from all over the world and other photographs than mine were frequently in the press.
When I innocently made statements that out of ‘700 tries’ I had obtained only about 18 good photographs it would get around that’ Adamski claims he has taken over 700 photographs of saucers and how can he get so many when it is all anybody else can do if he ever gets one ?’ These are samples of some of the distortions.
But some of this is perhaps to be expected considering the fact that we are dealing with the unprecedented and with things that truly stagger the imagination. And such, in general, is the normal lot of the pioneer.
While I am far from being the only person who has photographed space craft, I am told that it is doubtful if any other single individual has spent as much time, effort and money as I have in such attempts. Most other photographs of this phenomena have been caught on the fly, or as it were, by accident.
Then, too, Mount Palomar is undoubtedly an exceptionally good location for making sightings. Situated on the southern slopes of this beautiful mountain as Palomar Gardens is, at an elevation of 3,000 feet, I have clear viewing in all directions. A number of mountain peaks rise to the east and the south, while toward the south-west beyond the mountains and the valleys the Pacific Ocean stretches for many miles, clearly perceptible without aid of telescope or glasses whenever the coast is free of fog or haze. It is over these mountains and the coast that I have seen most of the space craft during the past two years. But there is a definite reason for this, and anyone desiring to do so can investigate this fact for himself.
If these craft are moving on natural magnetic force, and I believe they are, and if the vortexes of Earth are natural re-chargers, for them as has been stated many times, the district in which I am located is in their path of travel, just as our airplanes have definite travel lines between airports. For there is a strong natural vortex at Calexio, California, and another in Santa Monica Bay on the California coast. A ruler laid crossing these two points shows the mountains just south of Mount Palomar almost in exact centre of this line.
Considering this fact and my continuous watching, it is not strange that I have perhaps seen more space craft than other people. But there are others here at Palomar Gardens who, interested in these visitors, and working with me, and watching regularly many hours every week, have also seen a large percentage of those I have seen.
Had I been in this thing for money I could have made it—lots of it—at the times the papers were carrying me on their front pages, for I was one of the first to ‘stick my neck out’ by publicly discussing it. But I had no desire to prostitute so profound a subject nor make a mockery out of so unprecedented a happening. And this easily could be the reason why I have been made the target by certain people who have had such things in mind themselves.
And further—regarding the incredibility of the whole saucer subject, all students of the phenomena know that there is confusion ‘at the top’. And that a lot of this is purposeful, to damp down the public’s curiosity.
National security has many facets and the powers that be are themselves pushing out in the direction of space and of antigravity. Also, they know they have an enemy. And they do not know how far the enemy may have gone in this general field of a new form of power and propulsion. They do know that at the close of the war all the German scientists with knowledge did not come to this country ! Add to this the mystery of something from outer space and not yet defined by anybody and you can understand that Wright Patterson Field and the Pentagon have something to think about. Especially when they recall to what degree Orson Welles of the ‘Men-from-Mars‘ fiasco was able to manipulate people’s minds at short notice.
In addition to all this, another angle, usually discussed in whispers, is the hint that if our world discovers the saucers’ source of power what will this do to the whole economic structure upon which our civilisation operates ? Some claim there is already certain outward evidence that we are beginning to acquire this knowledge. Some claim there are entrenched interests that will fight to the death before allowing this to happen.
Realising all this, it has been easy to be charitable toward those who chose to discredit me. All saucer researchers are looking forward to the time when the bulging files of the Air Force may be opened. Until then the layman is left to use his own perspicacity. He is left to make his judgments in line with what he believes to be the motives and the honesty of those who make claims.
It is for this reason I have tried to be completely frank in every detail. I have nothing to hide. I have no subtle motives. I have tried to cover every question which I could foresee that might be asked regarding the factual side of my experiences.
With a subject that probably adds another dimension to our thinking it can be readily be seen that vast new scientific and philosophical implications rear their heads. Some of these are staggering and they will necessarily rock former foundations. I do not propose to discuss those angles at this time since I am keeping strictly to outward facts. But I have my theories regarding these implications, yes, and my deep and well-reasoned convictions and I propose to share them in a future book.
By 1951 and 1952 I began receiving reports of saucers apparently landing in various desert areas not a great drive from Mount Palomar. I have always worked independently of any other group or organisation and so, hoping to make personal contact and to learn just what these space people looked like and what their purpose was in coming Earthward, I made a number of trips to chosen spots. But without success.
However, there is a saying that ‘The secret of success is constancy of purpose’. And so the day finally came when my long watching was to be rewarded.
