Flying Saucer Review June 1980 [antikvár]

By 1955 ufology was already well-established, although there was little in the way of organisation. It had seen the big waves of 1947, 1952 and 1954, although the latter was still under examination; there was already a sizeable literature. "Sides" had been taken. Donald Keyhoe who formed NICAP and his followers were sympathetic to the idea of extraterrestrial visitants surveying the earth, but were very guarded on the score of landings. Needless to say they reacted scornfully against the claims of the other side, the "contactées" and their cult followers. Contactées were the human beings who claimed to have had meetings with saucer occupants, godlike creatures from Venus, etc., and to have had trips in space with them, and to have been given messages. Generally these messages seemed ludicrous in content; quite often, however, they included warnings about Man's tampering with atomic power, and polluting his environment, whereupon the detractors suggested the contactées were riding their personal ecological hobbyhorses, and everyone laughed. The best known of the contactées was George Adamski who, after stating that he had met his Venusian in the desert beyond Desert Center, California, later claimed that he was taken on a trip around the Moon which, he said, was a place of lush vegetation and water which, now, we all know is nonsense. Flying Saucers iiave Landed by Desmond Leslie and George Adamski was, despite the ridicule, a best seller; it brought many serious-minded people into the subject and its success encouraged Waveney Girvan and his friends to launch flying saucer review with Derek D. Dempster as editor. 'With all this in mind I scanned the 1955 issues. Right from the start the bias was towards the ETH. After the Editorial, Volume 1, No. 1 led off with "Let's talk space" featuring the story of Air Force Meteor pilot James Salandin's near miss with an object over Southend in October 1954. There followed an account of Capt. James Howard's remarkable BOAC Stratocruiser incident off Newfoundland in June 1954 supported by author Leonard Cramp's "space ship" speculations.In Vol. 1, No. 2, there was Professor Hermann Oberth's statement: "They are from Outer Space," and although the rocket pioneer condemned Adamski's claims as unfounded rumour, he thought flying saucers were "Vikings of another planatary system." In the same issue Dr. Cari Jung wrote of the United States Air Force: "Despite all the information in its possession and its so-called fear of creating panic (it) seemed to work systematically to do that very thing . . . since it has never yet published an authentic and certain account of the facts, only occasionally allowing information to be dragged out of it by journalists." Desmond Judge warned against occultism, and that we should be on our guard against flying saucers being put forward as another piece of "spitualistic mumbo-jumbo."In Vol. 1, No. 4, however, Meade Layne suggested, in "Mat and Demat" that UFOs emerge on to our plane of perception from a space-time frame of reference which is different from ours, while in Vol. 1, No. 5, a contributor was already describing experiments with psychokinesis."Dempster was followed by Brinsley Ic Poer Trencii (Lord Clancarty) in July 1956, and Waveney Girvan took over in September 1959 and was editor until his death in Oclober 1964.Dr. Rolf Alexander's article was not concerned with UFOs but, in an introduction, Derek Dempster wrote that "Psychokinesis can be classified as thought-power, which many believe propels the spaceships."So the "spaceships" were getting a fair crack of the whip. However there was a surprise in store for, when turning the pages of the one issue not yet mentioned, namely Vol. 1, No. 3, there suddenly was an article "Flying Saucers and the Psychic" by our old friend Wilfred Daniels. The veteran Staffordshire investigator wrote: "Most people who are prepared to admit that flying saucers are real, are material and mechanical, and originate from other planets, are yet unable or unwilling to accept the idea that the saucerians may be, by our standards, almost pure 'spirit' although possessing flesh and blood corporeal bodies much like our own." He had pointed out that generally people fight shy of the idea that there is "evidence of gigantic intellect, of spiritual superiority, and the ability to communicate with each other, and people of earth by means of mental telepathy." He went on to ask: "Could it not be that just because of their peculiar powers of mental perception, spirtualists, and those with 'psychic' sensibilities, may be the very people better equipped than anybody else to be sought out, or inspected at close quarters, by alien visitors in flying saucers?" Mr. Daniels then reminded readers that one of the criticisms levelled at George Adamski was that he was a medium, that his exchanges with the "Venusian" were made under trance conditions, and that Adamski had "painted in" the story of the physical contact in the Nevada desert to make the story seem more factual and less fantastic. Wilfred Daniels, however, found it ". . . easier to accept the idea of a 'trance' contact rather than a 'chance' contact."To support his theory Mr. Daniels cited three cases, including that of Mrs. Jennie Roestenburg who retold her 1954 story so convincingly 23 years later on the BBC-TV documentary Out of this World on May 11, 1977 who was known to possess psychic powers long before her CEIII experience.