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Looking for Orthon
In a literary tour-de-force, Colin Bennett advances the daring thesis that the defining moment of the twentieth century will prove to be 12.30 pm on Thursday, November 26, 1952, when George Adamski claims to have met Orthon, a long-haired youth from Venus.
228 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2001
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October 8, 2014
Colin Bennett is a "maverick Fortean". He thinks the official Fortean Society has become a spineless geekfest interested only in comical oddities that are merely a diversion from Fort's original radical inquiries. This pisses him off because the Society was formerly interested in anomalies of a more pressing nature, anomalies that could throw into doubt the entire intellectual framework of society. I don't know that all of his allegations are true, but they do provide the man impetus to blaze his own trail and provide what he feels the Fortean Society is no longer interested in providing. He does this through a website of his own called Combat Diaries, "Fortean/Anarchist/Situationist site", which is very interesting and inflammatory and politically incorrect and stimulating and somewhat obsessed with boobs. He has also written a few books, and this one focusses on the supreme UFO charlatan George Adamski, who through some very popular books in the 50's and 60's promulgated a cheesy sort of proto-New Agey vision of universal peace and brotherhood based on his numerous meetings with "Space Brothers" (from Venus I believe) in the desert. Anyone reading Adamski's books should know immediately that they are hoaxes, or at least delusions, and Bennett doesn't deny this, in fact he finds this to be the most profound aspect of the books on the grounds that since we live in a "society of the spectacle" a man who makes a spectacle of himself by claiming to commune with Space Brothers must be in possession of some key to the truth, for in a society of the spectacle the only truth is one that we manufacture ourselves. He revels in the deluded cheesiness of Adamski's universal vision of brotherhood, and reverences his ability to project his fantasies onto the reading public, many of whom took his fantasies for truth. Bennett clearly has a vision of the world as mass confusion, or at least pure subjectivity where truth and fantasy are interchangeable and anything can and will happen.
Bennett has also written a good book of Charles Fort and his philosophy, but be warned - both are repetitive and atrociously edited.
Bennett has also written a good book of Charles Fort and his philosophy, but be warned - both are repetitive and atrociously edited.
September 13, 2007
The Space Brothers are among us, and they are kinda tacky.
September 3, 2025
A RATHER ‘POSITIVE’ PERSPECTIVE ON THE PURPORTED ‘CONTACTEE’
Author Colin Bennett wrote in the Introduction to this 2001 book, “In 1952 a Polish immigrant who worked in a restaurant on Mt. Palomar, California, claimed that he had made contact with an extraterrestrial being in the Nevada desert… The immigrant’s name was George Adamski. Over the years that followed he would document his claim with photographs of flying saucers, dozens and dozens of photographs, in fact, and three books on his quite fantastic adventures. The first of these, ‘Flying Saucers Have Landed’…quickly became a bestseller and brought Adamski worldwide fame.” (Pg. 10) He continues, “It should come as no surprise that he angered the scientific establishment of his time. He was accused of being a complete imposter… Yet, despite the success of his books and his rise to fame, by the early 1960s Adamski had become a deeply disappointed man… the worldwide support had dwindled, and many of his closest friends had deserted him. He died at age 74 on the 23rd of April 1965.” (Pg. 12)
He asks, “Did Adamski really encounter an extraterrestrial? Or were his first and his subsequent contacts and his many films and photographs all hoaxes? Was Adamski… out to fool the world? Or did he trip into some parallel reality that we are only dimly aware of? This book contends that whatever the truth of the matter---and the truth is not as easy to untangle as the skeptics would like---the influence of George Adamski’s claim was enormous, and the term flying saucer will be forever associated with his name.” (Pg. 12)
He recounts, “In the late 1920s Adamski settled at Laguna Beach, California. Here he taught a form of oriental mystical philosophy combined with very strong Christian fundamentalist overtones. This view was based partly on the Theosophical teachings of both Madame Blavatsky and Annie Besant… This view was influenced also by Rudolph Steiner… Adamski called his particular version … ‘Universal Law.’ The spaceship chief he would meet during one of his trips into space claimed to have been carefully watching during his formative years, and was therefore fully aware of the kind of spiritual teaching he developed.” (Pg. 19)
He observes, “Though he was not a particularly clever or well-educated man, Adamski blended a strong intuition with limitless enthusiasm and a powerful commitment to a hybrid belief system. He had also … a passion for evolving technology, accompanied by a good grasp of scientific politics … In his time, Christianity was still essentially a pre-industrial belief system… He knew his Bible back to front, and was certainly the first to offer the kind of religio-scientific speculation that was to launch hundreds of books after his time. He discusses the UFO visions of Ezekiel some ten years before Joseph Blumrich’s ‘The Spaceships of Ezekiel’ and von Daniken’s ‘Chariots of the Gods’ appeared.” (Pg. 20-21)
He reports, “In 1940, being beyond the age for military service, Adamski moved with his wife and a group of students in ‘Universal Law’ to Valley Center Ranch, which was along the route to the foot of Mount Palomar… the site of the world-renowned 200-inch optical telescope. There the group, united by a common religious interest, formed a small self-help farming community… Adamski continued to lecture, often drawing large crowds. But in 1944, the Ranch was sold and he and his … followers, and ‘Universal Law’ pupils ‘moved a hundred feet up the mountain’ to live a candles-and-kerosene existence.” (Pg. 23)
He continues, “Adamski also worked with his wife … in a restaurant owned by his close friend and follower, Alice K. Wells. This restaurant served mainly the visitors and tourist parties who were going to Mount Palomar… Naturally enough, Adamski was always very sensitive about the ‘hamburger vendor’ title some popular newspapers had given him… As late as 1999 the British ‘X Factor’ magazine condescendingly refers to his ‘hot dog stand.’ … He certainly lived on the café property with his wife… the restaurant was quite obviously the center of his social life, if only because his two telescopes were nearby.” (Pg. 24-25) Of Adamski’s photographs, he comments, “Despite all that has happened since that time, these black and white images are still hauntingly beautiful, symbols of mysteries beyond mysteries that have entered the imagination.” (Pg. 38)
Ex-sergeant-instructor Jerold E. Baker “arranged with Adamski to try a UFO shoot with his Brownie at the same time as Adamski shot … some distance away… Baker got one shot… and Adamski says he got four… but in ‘Flying Saucers Have Landed] … [it] contains no mention of Baker, or his shot… Baker, for one reason or another, became steadily more suspicious of Adamski…” (Pg. 39-41)
He explains, “for 1953, ‘Flying Saucers Have Landed’ … [had] a refreshing transatlantic feel to it… many were hooked immediately on Leslie’s unprecedented mix’n’match style… We have history, and the closely focused present day in terms of a burst of spleen against Dr. Donald Menzel [a skeptic]… We have … accusations about a conspiracy of silence…” (Pg. 56) The author suggests, “Yes, the skeptics might indeed be correct… But perhaps in our Entertainment State, we should no longer try and ‘solve’ mysteries, so much as to try to enter their peculiar dimensions.” (Pg. 91) Later, he adds, “While Adamski’s ludicrous encounters were easy enough to reject, his photographs and films were a different matter. Much of his filmed work has survived stringent authenticity tests to this day.” (Pg. 100)
He says of Adamski’s lectures,. “[he] blithely include[d] in talks bits and pieces from an encyclopedia ‘factual’ knowledge culled in the main from the popular science journals of his day… When this exotic combination was mixed with a terribly mawkish Christianity, it formed a stream of cross-referenced mythologies that quite a few found hard to take.” (Pg. 126)
He admits, “Adamski certainly made seemingly nonsensical statements, such as saying that 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… it has created a picture of an inhabited Venus, if only to reject the image immediately.” (Pg. 141)
He notes, “instead of a liar, a fraudster, or con-man, the much-misunderstood Adamski can be seen as essentially a shaman-like prankster… Like the shaman and the fool, Adamski could be, on occasion, a magnificent performer. He effectively produced a blinding stream of images, symbols, metaphors, strange juxtapositions, weird connections, a whole living theater which annoyed, baffled, outraged, yet inspired… When we look upon all this as truth by performance-theater … we void the depressing skeptical merry-go-round of tiny little skeptical minds… trying to decide whether his experiences were ‘real’ or ‘false.’’ (Pg. 145) Later, he adds, “This is the trouble with Adamski: just when we see both his life and art as prototype of extremely advanced factional entertainment, he has the infernal cheek to pull it off… he is a reminder of those saints of history who were deeply embarrassed because they could not help levitating in full public view.” (Pg. 151-152)
Adamski in 1959 made a ‘legendary’ world tour, and actually held discussions with persons including Dutch Queen Juliana. (Pg. 174) But Bennett acknowledges, “Adamski’s actual lectures were another problem. He had never been a good public lecturer under the best of circumstances… He stumbled over words, and did not speak evenly… To be fair to Adamski, we must remember that he had no formal education… no teaching or lecturing experience, and spoke his Native American with quite a strong Polish accent.” (Pg. 178-179)
But finally, “Adamski’s mental level has collapsed… those titanic confusions were eventually to destroy him… Something has happened to Adamski… Certainly something has dimmed the American sunlight in his head.” (Pg. 182) He continues, “Nearing his mid-seventies, Adamski’s magic was becoming fickle. All he seemed able to manage was a kind of blown-up circus that compromised his personal worth and dignity… his worldwide support collapsed after 1963. Doubt had triumphed.” (Pg. 189, 192)
Bennett concludes, “Adamski mixed Christ with technology, myth and the concrete, cool and pleasant sanity and the utterly fantastic claim, and he lived in the battleground between all mixed metaphors. In doing so, he fell into the ruthlessly selective machinery of the Western mind and was crushed.” (Pg. 192) Later, he adds, “If people such as George Adamski have anything to teach us, it is not that the gods are good, bad, or indifferent, but that they can manifest at all…. They show us also that we ourselves have power to create that sacred and utterly scandalous tomfoolery which is always at the heart of time, change, and product.” (Pg. 209)
I found Bennett’s willingness to always ‘smooth over’ and present a ‘positive’ overview of Adamski… well, annoying. (I am one of those who considers Adamski to be an outright fraud. E.g., Venus and the dark side of the moon look nothing like his ‘descriptions,’ for example.) But the book does contain some useful biographical/background material on Adamski.
Author Colin Bennett wrote in the Introduction to this 2001 book, “In 1952 a Polish immigrant who worked in a restaurant on Mt. Palomar, California, claimed that he had made contact with an extraterrestrial being in the Nevada desert… The immigrant’s name was George Adamski. Over the years that followed he would document his claim with photographs of flying saucers, dozens and dozens of photographs, in fact, and three books on his quite fantastic adventures. The first of these, ‘Flying Saucers Have Landed’…quickly became a bestseller and brought Adamski worldwide fame.” (Pg. 10) He continues, “It should come as no surprise that he angered the scientific establishment of his time. He was accused of being a complete imposter… Yet, despite the success of his books and his rise to fame, by the early 1960s Adamski had become a deeply disappointed man… the worldwide support had dwindled, and many of his closest friends had deserted him. He died at age 74 on the 23rd of April 1965.” (Pg. 12)
He asks, “Did Adamski really encounter an extraterrestrial? Or were his first and his subsequent contacts and his many films and photographs all hoaxes? Was Adamski… out to fool the world? Or did he trip into some parallel reality that we are only dimly aware of? This book contends that whatever the truth of the matter---and the truth is not as easy to untangle as the skeptics would like---the influence of George Adamski’s claim was enormous, and the term flying saucer will be forever associated with his name.” (Pg. 12)
He recounts, “In the late 1920s Adamski settled at Laguna Beach, California. Here he taught a form of oriental mystical philosophy combined with very strong Christian fundamentalist overtones. This view was based partly on the Theosophical teachings of both Madame Blavatsky and Annie Besant… This view was influenced also by Rudolph Steiner… Adamski called his particular version … ‘Universal Law.’ The spaceship chief he would meet during one of his trips into space claimed to have been carefully watching during his formative years, and was therefore fully aware of the kind of spiritual teaching he developed.” (Pg. 19)
He observes, “Though he was not a particularly clever or well-educated man, Adamski blended a strong intuition with limitless enthusiasm and a powerful commitment to a hybrid belief system. He had also … a passion for evolving technology, accompanied by a good grasp of scientific politics … In his time, Christianity was still essentially a pre-industrial belief system… He knew his Bible back to front, and was certainly the first to offer the kind of religio-scientific speculation that was to launch hundreds of books after his time. He discusses the UFO visions of Ezekiel some ten years before Joseph Blumrich’s ‘The Spaceships of Ezekiel’ and von Daniken’s ‘Chariots of the Gods’ appeared.” (Pg. 20-21)
He reports, “In 1940, being beyond the age for military service, Adamski moved with his wife and a group of students in ‘Universal Law’ to Valley Center Ranch, which was along the route to the foot of Mount Palomar… the site of the world-renowned 200-inch optical telescope. There the group, united by a common religious interest, formed a small self-help farming community… Adamski continued to lecture, often drawing large crowds. But in 1944, the Ranch was sold and he and his … followers, and ‘Universal Law’ pupils ‘moved a hundred feet up the mountain’ to live a candles-and-kerosene existence.” (Pg. 23)
He continues, “Adamski also worked with his wife … in a restaurant owned by his close friend and follower, Alice K. Wells. This restaurant served mainly the visitors and tourist parties who were going to Mount Palomar… Naturally enough, Adamski was always very sensitive about the ‘hamburger vendor’ title some popular newspapers had given him… As late as 1999 the British ‘X Factor’ magazine condescendingly refers to his ‘hot dog stand.’ … He certainly lived on the café property with his wife… the restaurant was quite obviously the center of his social life, if only because his two telescopes were nearby.” (Pg. 24-25) Of Adamski’s photographs, he comments, “Despite all that has happened since that time, these black and white images are still hauntingly beautiful, symbols of mysteries beyond mysteries that have entered the imagination.” (Pg. 38)
Ex-sergeant-instructor Jerold E. Baker “arranged with Adamski to try a UFO shoot with his Brownie at the same time as Adamski shot … some distance away… Baker got one shot… and Adamski says he got four… but in ‘Flying Saucers Have Landed] … [it] contains no mention of Baker, or his shot… Baker, for one reason or another, became steadily more suspicious of Adamski…” (Pg. 39-41)
He explains, “for 1953, ‘Flying Saucers Have Landed’ … [had] a refreshing transatlantic feel to it… many were hooked immediately on Leslie’s unprecedented mix’n’match style… We have history, and the closely focused present day in terms of a burst of spleen against Dr. Donald Menzel [a skeptic]… We have … accusations about a conspiracy of silence…” (Pg. 56) The author suggests, “Yes, the skeptics might indeed be correct… But perhaps in our Entertainment State, we should no longer try and ‘solve’ mysteries, so much as to try to enter their peculiar dimensions.” (Pg. 91) Later, he adds, “While Adamski’s ludicrous encounters were easy enough to reject, his photographs and films were a different matter. Much of his filmed work has survived stringent authenticity tests to this day.” (Pg. 100)
He says of Adamski’s lectures,. “[he] blithely include[d] in talks bits and pieces from an encyclopedia ‘factual’ knowledge culled in the main from the popular science journals of his day… When this exotic combination was mixed with a terribly mawkish Christianity, it formed a stream of cross-referenced mythologies that quite a few found hard to take.” (Pg. 126)
He admits, “Adamski certainly made seemingly nonsensical statements, such as saying that 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… it has created a picture of an inhabited Venus, if only to reject the image immediately.” (Pg. 141)
He notes, “instead of a liar, a fraudster, or con-man, the much-misunderstood Adamski can be seen as essentially a shaman-like prankster… Like the shaman and the fool, Adamski could be, on occasion, a magnificent performer. He effectively produced a blinding stream of images, symbols, metaphors, strange juxtapositions, weird connections, a whole living theater which annoyed, baffled, outraged, yet inspired… When we look upon all this as truth by performance-theater … we void the depressing skeptical merry-go-round of tiny little skeptical minds… trying to decide whether his experiences were ‘real’ or ‘false.’’ (Pg. 145) Later, he adds, “This is the trouble with Adamski: just when we see both his life and art as prototype of extremely advanced factional entertainment, he has the infernal cheek to pull it off… he is a reminder of those saints of history who were deeply embarrassed because they could not help levitating in full public view.” (Pg. 151-152)
Adamski in 1959 made a ‘legendary’ world tour, and actually held discussions with persons including Dutch Queen Juliana. (Pg. 174) But Bennett acknowledges, “Adamski’s actual lectures were another problem. He had never been a good public lecturer under the best of circumstances… He stumbled over words, and did not speak evenly… To be fair to Adamski, we must remember that he had no formal education… no teaching or lecturing experience, and spoke his Native American with quite a strong Polish accent.” (Pg. 178-179)
But finally, “Adamski’s mental level has collapsed… those titanic confusions were eventually to destroy him… Something has happened to Adamski… Certainly something has dimmed the American sunlight in his head.” (Pg. 182) He continues, “Nearing his mid-seventies, Adamski’s magic was becoming fickle. All he seemed able to manage was a kind of blown-up circus that compromised his personal worth and dignity… his worldwide support collapsed after 1963. Doubt had triumphed.” (Pg. 189, 192)
Bennett concludes, “Adamski mixed Christ with technology, myth and the concrete, cool and pleasant sanity and the utterly fantastic claim, and he lived in the battleground between all mixed metaphors. In doing so, he fell into the ruthlessly selective machinery of the Western mind and was crushed.” (Pg. 192) Later, he adds, “If people such as George Adamski have anything to teach us, it is not that the gods are good, bad, or indifferent, but that they can manifest at all…. They show us also that we ourselves have power to create that sacred and utterly scandalous tomfoolery which is always at the heart of time, change, and product.” (Pg. 209)
I found Bennett’s willingness to always ‘smooth over’ and present a ‘positive’ overview of Adamski… well, annoying. (I am one of those who considers Adamski to be an outright fraud. E.g., Venus and the dark side of the moon look nothing like his ‘descriptions,’ for example.) But the book does contain some useful biographical/background material on Adamski.
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