The Flying Saucer flap of the 1950s

[Pulpmeister]

This doesn't seem to fit in reading recommendations, so I'll try here. Recently I came across a bunch of tatty books containing, among other things, several seminal "Flying Saucer" books from the very early days. Why not share them here?

The Flying Saucers Are Real: Donald Keyhoe, 1950

Written as a series of articles in TRUE magazine, in a racy first-person narrative full of crisp dialogue in the style of a private eye novel. Keyhoe sifts through the welter of sensational headlines and confusion in the wake of the Kenneth Arnold "sighting" in 1947.
A good survey of the Flying Saucer scene at the time, but he has a rather uncertain grip on what constitutes evidence, and a touching faith in the absolute accuracy and reliability of all the witesses in reporting what they thought they saw.

Behind the Flying Saucers, Frank Scully, 1950

Frank Scully's best-selling book which capitalised on the great Flying Saucer hysteria of time. It is largely based on the information supplied to Scully by two men later convicted of fraud, and it's full of incredibly wrong science (Pluto is the closest planet to the sun? I'm not kidding.)
It is the first "crashed alien space ship and dead aliens" conspiracy book. The tale the con-men told of the crashed saucer was intended to provide the two fraudsters with a "sucker list" of gullible people to sell their bogus "doodlebug" oil and gold detectors to. Whether newspaperman Scully was aware of this is still debated.

Is Another World Watching? Gerald Heard, 1953

Mystic Gerald Heard examines the evidence and concludes that the Flying Saucers are from Venus, and piloted by intelligent bees. (Gerald Heard wrote a number of detective novels, too, notably A Taste For Honey, featuring an elderly gentleman named Mycroft, who was raising bees on the South Downs.)

Flying Saucers have Landed: Desmond Leslie and George Adamski, 1953

In two parts, the first consisting of British Theosophist Desmond Leslie's long, rambling survey proving that the Flying Saucers are mystic "vimanas", as in the revealed sacred writings of the Theosophists.
The second part is brief: George Adamski's story of his encounter with a flying saucer and his conversation with its pilot, who was from Venus, but looked exactly like a human being. Has a selection of dubious photos of the "space ship".

Flying Saucers From Mars, Credic Allingham, 1954

A nifty riposte to the Leslie/Adamski book, in which Allingham demolishes the "vimana" theory, and then introduces his own conversation with another flying saucer pilot, this time from Mars, whom he met near Lossiemouth in Scotland. The fake saucer in Allingham's photos look just like the fake saucer in Adamski's. Unlike Adamski, Allingham includes an actual photo (taken in bad light) of the "Martian", walking away from the camera, who looks uncannily like an earthman.
Now known to be a hoax, perpetrated by TV astronomer Patrick Moore and his mate Peter Davies, perhaps to see just how gullible people could be. The answer? Very.
The photo of Allingham in the book is of Davies, wearing a false moustache and horn rim glasses, the same disguise he wore at Allingham's only public appearance.

[Pulpmeister]

The Keyhoe book seems not to have had the copyright renewed, and is out of copyright in the USA. The Leslie/Adamski book is free on-line from a site which is almost certainly the successor to the late George Adamski's successful saucer cult HQ. The others are not, I think, available as ebooks, but I might be wrong.

[rkomar]

C.G. Jung wrote a book on Flying Saucers in 1959. An interesting read if you're more interested in a psychological analysis of the question.

[alanHd]

I remember reading most of them from my misspent childhood.

[Dr. Drib]

I read most of these when I was an impressionable, pimple-faced adolescent. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

Why not supply links to these suckers, so the curious can read them?

I'm sure we have a lot of conspiracy theorists here and members who believe that flying saucers and Martians and other strange creatures really do exist, and that they're ready to eat you. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

[Rizla]

UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record

Maybe the best and most important book ever written on the UFO phenomena.

Project Identification: The First Scientific Field Study of Ufo Phenomena

A forgotten classic written in the 70s by a team of scientists investigating a UFO flap in the USA. Rather heavy on the collection and analysis of facts! Out of print but a scan can be found on the net.

These two works changed my mind on the subject.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by rkomar

C.G. Jung wrote a book on Flying Saucers in 1959. An interesting read if you're more interested in a psychological analysis of the question.

I'm gradually reading it. It seems to me that Jung was very good at not stating whether he believed UFOs were a genuinely physical phenomena or only projections from the psyche. But as ever he is a worthwhile read.

[Pulpmeister]

The Keyhoe book is on Project Gutenberg.

I think the others can be had from Amazon, judging by a quick Google.

[tubemonkey]

I believe in UFOs. I've seen several myself. The were flying objects I couldn't identify, so they were unidentified.

[eschwartz]

I can't think of any UFO books I've read other than this one, sorry to say: http://www.amazon.com/New-Adventures.../dp/B0057AN9Q0

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I believe in UFOs. I've seen several myself. The were flying objects I couldn't identify, so they were unidentified.

You rascal, you!

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I'm gradually reading it. It seems to me that Jung was very good at not stating whether he believed UFOs were a genuinely physical phenomena or only projections from the psyche. But as ever he is a worthwhile read.

Yes, and he did the same thing in his book on the psychology of believing in God. He was careful to not exclude the existence of either, while analyzing our predisposition for belief. A wise course, especially for the book about God.

[murg]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I'm gradually reading it. It seems to me that Jung was very good at not stating whether he believed UFOs were a genuinely physical phenomena or only projections from the psyche. But as ever he is a worthwhile read.

It's just planet envy.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I believe in UFOs. I've seen several myself. The were flying objects I couldn't identify, so they were unidentified.

Neil deGrasse Tyson on UFOs (with a side on psychology).


This reminds me of reading (years ago now) about this guy who claimed to be a survivor of a battle between hostile aliens and humans years ago. Yes Area 51 was part of his tale as well as underground bunkers where aliens were in hiding. He also claimed to have rocks that must have been brought by the aliens because the rocks contained chemical elements not known on Earth. The thing of it was he would never let any scientists analyze those rocks and the rocks disappeared on his death. The aliens must have managed to steal his evidence when he died because no one could find it.

[Yolina]

So the Martians come from Venus and are actually bees? That's not confusing. At all.