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Listening To The Contactees

O

OldTimeRadio

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Last week at the Cincinnati Old Time Radio Convention I picked up a MP3 disc featuring the voices of some of the most famous (or should I say infamous) flying saucer "contactees" of the 1950s. With one exception I'd never previously heard any of their actual voices.

I'm talking about Dan Fry, George Adamski, George Van Tassel, Orfeo Angelucci and Dan Martin. (I'd previously heard Fry interviewed, but only as a very old man, decades after his reported experiences.)

I was a little surprised that Adamski still possessed a noticeable Polish accent after spending most of his life in the United States. It was muted ("somet'ink I t'ink) but still recognizeable.

George Van Tassel had one of the best speaking voices I've ever heard - a rich baritone which would have served him well on the radio or the screen, with each word distinctly enunciated and correctly pronounced. (Not surprisingly, his favorite film actor was Ronald Colman.)

Martin had almost exactly the same type of voice.

Other voices on the disk included Morris K. Jessop and Frank Edwards.

I'd been hunting for Edwards' voice for years.
While he was one of the most prolific American newscasters of the 1940s and 1950s I've never been able to track down any surviving broadcasts.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
Last week at the Cincinnati Old Time Radio Convention...
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Must be pretty cool having you very own convention... Ive never delved too far into contactee accounts, wheres a good starting point?
 
HenryFort said:
Must be pretty cool having you very own convention...
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Yes, this was our 21st annual Convention. And we were late starters compared with some other cities.

Ive never delved too far into contactee accounts, wheres a good starting point?
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George Adamski remains the most famous - and also the least believeable. (Science fiction editor Ray Palmer claimed that Adamski had originally sent him his 1952 "Venusian" contact as a short story....in 1939!)

But I assumed for nearly half-a-century that the "contactees" were ALL frauds.

My attitude has softened somewhat in very recent years.

Dan Fry, George Van Tassel and Truman Bethurum ALL had their experiences in the heat of the western deserts! Fry's was in New Mexico on the Fourth of July. Van Tassel's was while sleeping outdoors because it was too impossibly hot to sleep indoors.

So I think we're most likely dealing with genuine heat visions rather than outright frauds.

It's worth noting that Fry and Van Tassel gave up lucrative positions within the aero-space industry to preach the gospel of the "Space Brothers." (Fry had been an instrumentation man during the very earliest days of the Space Race and Van Tassel had been Howard Hughes personal aircraft inspector.)
 
Morris K. Jessup

I would have like to have heard Morris K. Jessup. Jessup's 1955 book, The Case for the UFO, had a lot of ideas that were well ahead of their time (he beat Von Daniken on ancient astronauts by 20 years). It's also interesting that it was a copy of Jessup's book that ended up with Carlos Allende's annotations providing the first description of the alleged Philadelphia Experiment.

Sadly, Jessup committed suicide in 1959 so that audio is probably quite rare.

S

PS - My avatar is a photo taken back in 1956 by Elizabeth Klarer, a contactee from South Africa. Klarer was a little different - she claimed a space alien got her pregnant. She stuck to her story until her death in 1994.
 
Heat visions can certainly cause hallucinations ,but I think some of the contactees then and now may have actually experienced a genuine experience beyond just mere hallucination. Whether that event in their lives was an ET. a 'daimon' ala Harpur, an ultraterrestrial ala Keel, or some other 'entity' remains unknown.
Even if they are only psychological in nature the sociological and religious aspects are fascinating.
 
dr_wu said:
Heat visions can certainly cause hallucinations ,but I think some of the contactees then and now may have actually experienced a genuine experience beyond just mere hallucination. Whether that event in their lives was an ET. a 'daimon' ala Harpur, an ultraterrestrial ala Keel, or some other 'entity' remains unknown.
Even if they are only psychological in nature the sociological and religious aspects are fascinating.
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Doctor, you're very possibly correct. Fry and Van Tassel seem so damned sincere in their oral testimonies. And the desert didn't become the place to have visions just yesterday.

Moreover, let's not forget Carl Jung's favorite contactee, Orfeo Angelucci. As a usually-skeptical friend of mine phrased it, "If you're name's 'Orfeo Angelucci' you're allowed to have visions. It may even be a requirement."

That's close to Dr. Jung's own take on the case.
 
OldTimeRadio:
Doctor, you're very possibly correct. Fry and Van Tassel seem so damned sincere in their oral testimonies. And the desert didn't become the place to have visions just yesterday.
Moreover, let's not forget Carl Jung's favorite contactee, Orfeo Angelucci. As a usually-skeptical friend of mine phrased it, "If you're name's 'Orfeo Angelucci' you're allowed to have visions. It may even be a requirement."

That's close to Dr. Jung's own take on the case.
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Where do you place 'Billy' Meier in this contactee world.....genuine or hoaxer?
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dr_wu said:
Where do you place 'Billy' Meier in this contactee world.....genuine or hoaxer?
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The likelihood is that they are ALL hoaxers of one sort of the other. But the question is whether at least some of those "hoaxes" may have been internal delusions rather than conscious frauds. And I think we've learned over the previous 60 years that psychologically "normal" individuals can have "false visions" without being in the least bit psychotic. Isn't that what the famous play (and James Stewart film) HARVEY is all about?

But the truthfulness or lack of it of the Billy Meier stories depends on the authenticity of his photographs. And exactly as in the case of George Adamski I find it extremely difficult to take those photographs seriously.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
Dan Fry, George Van Tassel and Truman Bethurum ALL had their experiences in the heat of the western deserts! Fry's was in New Mexico on the Fourth of July. Van Tassel's was while sleeping outdoors because it was too impossibly hot to sleep indoors.
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An old teacher of mine used to have a thing about 'desert religions' - he maintained that the origins of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism were inextricably linked to the desert (in some way).

I find contactee phenonema fascinating - I think I started a thread a while back which didn't really go anywhere. I think they are just as worthy of study as more 'believable' accounts, having more of the character of mystic visions than evidence of alien life.
 
H_James said:
I find contactee phenomena fascinating - I think I started a thread a while back which didn't really go anywhere. I think they are just as worthy of study as more 'believable' accounts, having more of the character of mystic visions than evidence of alien life.
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Having finally reached the belief that many of the best-known contactees were NOT conscious frauds, I'm inclined to agree with you. Now their "contacts" have to be re-interpreted in the light of more traditional religious visions.

Can you please supply a link to your previous thread? Maybe we can get it cooking again.
 
George King who actually founded a quasi-religion (Aetherius Society) wasn't contacted in the desert. He was contacted in his London flat, according to some versions while doing the washing up....
 
I mentioned Elizabeth Klarer who had her alleged contacts in South Africa. Her story of space brothers, in some ways, is very close to George Adamski's. In fact, it is my understanding that the two actually met and formed a friendship.

The only thing that interests me at all are the photos Klarer took in 1956. These were not the fuzzy egg incubator that Adamski proffered, but multiple images of a very clear disc, flying in dramatic fashion before an approaching thunderstorm. Her tale of being whisked off to another planet where she was impregnated and gave birth to a son in four months, is just as unbelievable as the others. Yet here in the middle of this miasma are these compelling photos.

Now, it may very well be that they are pictures of a hubcap. But somehow, like the Trent photos, you get the definite impression of size and distance. The sad thing is that the photos may never be seriously analyzed because of Klarer's other claims. Makes me wonder if there are not some other kernels of truth in the tales of the contactees that are being overlooked because they are lost amongst the outlandish claims.

S
 
Skeptical01 said:
...Yet here in the middle of this miasma are these compelling photos...
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Dont look that compelling to me, look rather of their time and run-of-the-mill.
 
Timble2 said:
George King who actually founded a quasi-religion (Aetherius Society) wasn't contacted in the desert. He was contacted in his London flat, according to some versions while doing the wahing up....
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And wasn't King's one-time disciple Benjamin Creme contacted in the bathtub?
 
When George Van Tassel had his first "alien" contact in 1954, he was most impressed with the crystalline purity of the English spoken by his visitor, "Solgunda." Van Tassel remarked that Solgunda sounded exactly like his favorite motion picture actor, Ronald Colman.

But that's also the way Van Tassel himself sounded!

So was George ultimately just talking to himself?
 
There's a chapter about Daniel Fry in Tim Good's book Alien Base. Fry's own book recounts a very long and pseudo-technical conversation he had with an unseen alien. I find that rather suspicious in itself, as the conversation seems far too long and tedious to recall verbatim in such detail.

Of all the contactees, Orfeo Angelucci strikes me as the only one who may have genuinely experienced a mystical vision (Jung recounts the case at some length in the final chapter of Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth, while not even dignifying the other contactees with a single mention).

However, I've always been intrigued by Truman Bethurum's claim that the last time he met the Clarion beauty Aura Rhanes, she was sipping orange juice in a roadside cafe and pretended not to recognise him. It seems an odd detail to invent.
 
The issue I have with the 1950's contactees is that they all mentioned the impending Nuclear War.....which has still to occur. Thus making their other claims questionable.

I guess one could argue that the message was heard and the Cuban Crisis or some other brinkmanship posturing was the point where the human race turned right instead of left.

Another though strikes me that "impending" to an alien could refer to anytime in the next X years, where as for me 50 years is well over due.

And in all honestly, contact aside, I'd love to see Van Tassel's cave home just cause it sounds cool!

mooks
 
Moooksta said:
The issue I have with the 1950's contactees is that they all mentioned the impending Nuclear War.....which has still to occur. Thus making their other claims questionable.
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But if the contactees were sincere (the money question) they were merely relaying what they were told.....or believed they were told.

Besides, why do we assume that just because aliens are able to travel from other planets or even other star systems that they can foretell the future?

We have the ability to go to the Moon or possibly even to Mars, but nobody argues that this makes astronauts soothsayers.
 
graylien said:
Fry's own book recounts a very long and pseudo-technical conversation he had with an unseen alien. I find that rather suspicious in itself, as the conversation seems far too long and tedious to recall verbatim in such detail.
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But was the conversation presented as being verbatim?

15 years ago I had a fascinating seven-hours-long conversation with the man who coined the word "bionics." I can still recall long chunks of that dialogue and could reconstruct much of it on paper, including "he said" and "I said."

But I wouldn't pretend that the actual syntax would be verbatim.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
Besides, why do we assume that just because aliens are able to travel from other planets or even other star systems that they can foretell the future?

We have the ability to go to the Moon or possibly even to Mars, but nobody argues that this makes astronauts soothsayers.
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Erm...I'm not assuming the aliens have the ability to tell the future cos, from my personal experience, I've never met one. (Keeping my fingers crossed though)

The contactees of the fifties spoke of a recurring theme. Warnings of nuclear war, concerns about man's atomic thirst and celestial intervention or non-intervention in those matters.

Wasn't the "alien breeding with humans" scenario first encountered in the 60's, early 70's. (I'd have to check that though 'm happy if someone else knows.) A period known for it's shift in liberal views.

As the years roll by the warnings shifted more toward an ecological theme which was in keeping with the zeitgeist.

What is the distinction between "contact" and "abduction" ?

Walton's story was an abduction due to physical abuse he claimed happened. Striber's, if it happened, started as an "abduction" but ended up as a "contact" as the emphasis of his experiences moved away from physical abuse toward revelation? Is that the difference? Now I'm assuming!

Which came first? Contact. Abduction.

mooks
 
The quick answer is that the vast majority of people DIDN'T believe the contactees' stories of flying to Saturn, but DO believe the abductees' accounts, at least to the extent of accepting their sincerity.

To an extent this is due to the fact that the contactees' tales seemed so damned pedestrian and downright boring - the idea of crossing space with cardboardish "aliens" who spout moral platitudes which would be corny on fortune-telling cards from a penny arcade strikes me as real close to Hell.

The best stories told by the abductees are highly layered, in some cases as greatly so as the most magnificently-constructed science fiction novels.

Grorge Adamski's books were an insult to the intelligence but Whitler Streiber's are not.....and that remains true whether we accept Streiber's premises or not.
 
I hope that this not too off topic but does anyone know if there is/are any hard evidence of the implants some abductees describe as having?

I am not "up to speed" with the developments in ufo's but I am curious to know if these implants have been seen (x-ray, scanner) or even excised and if so can they be identified as anything manufactured here (as opposed to an extra terrestial artifact).

I seem to recall that there was one of these implants recovered from an abductee and that it was going to be examined, but I cannot remember what the decided outcome was.
 
tilly50 said:
I hope that this not too off topic.....
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I don't regard your question as off-topic in the least, and I'm the guy who started the topic.

I've seen some photographs of what are supposed to be excised "alien implants" but they haven't impressed me very much. They've all looked like little doodads I could easily make from the metallic detritus at the bottom of my toolbox and shove [OUCH!] under the skin.
 
Tilly50,
I concur with Old Time in saying that none of them, as far as implants go, have ever been shown to be alien in origin. Dr Lear , a podiatrist in the US, became active in investigating many of these alleged implants and is convinced some are genuine but none have been shown to be so by any science group or University. He even refused to loan them out for independent analysis which in itself is suspicious imo.


Dr J Vallee, the world famous ufologist, investigated fallen artifacts that allegedly came from ufos some years back and was unable to find or show that any exhibited any off world qualities though afew were unusual in their construction.

Some proponents of et artifacts will say that aliens would use the same elements as us so they might look 'normal' but i would think tha alien alloys and manufacturing techniques would still be obvious yet none have shown this so far.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
Last week at the Cincinnati Old Time Radio Convention I picked up a MP3 disc featuring the voices of some of the most famous (or should I say infamous) flying saucer "contactees" of the 1950s. With one exception I'd never previously heard any of their actual voices.

I'm talking about Dan Fry, George Adamski, George Van Tassel, Orfeo Angelucci and Dan Martin. (I'd previously heard Fry interviewed, but only as a very old man, decades after his reported experiences.)

I was a little surprised that Adamski still possessed a noticeable Polish accent after spending most of his life in the United States. It was muted ("somet'ink I t'ink) but still recognizeable.

George Van Tassel had one of the best speaking voices I've ever heard - a rich baritone which would have served him well on the radio or the screen, with each word distinctly enunciated and correctly pronounced. (Not surprisingly, his favorite film actor was Ronald Colman.)

Martin had almost exactly the same type of voice.

Other voices on the disk included Morris K. Jessop and Frank Edwards.

I'd been hunting for Edwards' voice for years.
While he was one of the most prolific American newscasters of the 1940s and 1950s I've never been able to track down any surviving broadcasts.
Click to expand...

Any chance of hearing an mp3 of it? I guess the copyright would have run out by now? Be fascinating to hear and even better to sample! :)
 
dr_wu said:
Dr J Vallee, the world famous ufologist, investigated fallen artifacts that allegedly came from ufos some years back and was unable to find or show that any exhibited any off world qualities though afew were unusual in their construction.

Some proponents of et artifacts will say that aliens would use the same elements as us so they might look 'normal' but i would think tha alien alloys and manufacturing techniques would still be obvious yet none have shown this so far.
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But does this prove that the UFOnauts are non-existent, or that they are ultra-terrestrial rather than extra-? The adherents to that view have been growing ever since John Keel broke onto the scene in the late 1960s.
 
Degrizzzz, sorry for the tardiness of this reply. I can get the disc copied for you and mailed off to you. No charge for the copying and you can refund the postage later, if you wish. Send me a PEM.

Sincerely,

OldTimeRadio (George Wagner in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA)
 
My late father was into flying saucers. I used to read his books about them and look hard at the blurred photos of highly-flung hupbcaps passed off as UFOs. :lol:

He'd have LOVED those photos. :D
 
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