A is for Adamski September 13, 2020
Visiting the Weird

Reviewing the Weird: “A” is for Adamski: The Golden Age of the UFO Contactees by Adam Gorightly and Greg Bishop

You want weird?  Look no further than “A” is for Adamski.  Here’s a taste of the characters and exploits you’ll encounter in this chronicle of the contactee movement, whose heyday stretched from the late 1940s through the late 1970s:

  • Lee Childers is taken for a spaceship ride to Mars and the moon.  He returns to earth and puts together a rejuvenation machine.  After taking 21 space trips, he ditches his wife for an alien beauty named Princess NEgonna (73-74).
  • Ralph Lael encounters ghost lights that lead him to a secret extraterrestrial hideout near Brown Mountain in North Carolina.  The aliens give him a ride to Venus where he discovers its inhabitants “are descendants of the planet Pewam, one of whom was an attractive lady named Noma” who is scantily dressed.  By using a flatscreen TV, the Venusians allow Lael to witness the Cuban Missile Crisis as it unfolds.  When he is returned to earth, the aliens give Lael a small alien mummy as a parting gift.  Lael displays it in the Outer Space Rock Shop he opens near Bald Mountain (151-152).
  • Howard Menger encounters a lovely alien woman as a 10-year-old boy.  Decades later, he encounters her again and is so taken with her that he leaves his terrestrial wife and kids for her, write two books on his contact with extraterrestrials, and releases a record album, “Authentic Music from Outer Space” (191-193).

Now, before you start thinking every encounter in this tome details the bizarre encounters of oversexed males, try these on for size:

  • Ida Kannenberg encountered aliens in the California desert.  They let her tour their spacecraft and secretly implant her with a communication device.  Decades after her close encounter she starts receiving transmissions from time-traveling Atlanteans.
  • Helen and Betty Mitchell met two Martians in a St. Louis coffeeshop.  Months later, they encountered them again and are given a spaceship ride (203-204).
  • Then there’s Omnec Onec, who “is not a contactee in the classic sense; she actually claims to be from Venus.”  What else would you expect her first book to be called, then, but From Venus I Came.  Similarly, Omnec’s ex-husband called his essay memoir, “My Ex-Wife Was Born On Venus.”  Apparently, divorce didn’t shake his belief in her: “Is she authentic?  I decided so many years ago, and I got important confirmation from authorities” (222).
  • One of the saddest contactee stories is Gloria Lee’s, who claims that J.W., an alien from Jupiter, who contacted the flight attendant in 1953.  Through channeling, Gloria Lee and J.W. collaborated on a book, Why We Are Here.  Besides trying to rectify earthlings on our on our misconceptions regarding monogamy and sexual drives, the Jupiterians and Lee concocted a plan for world peace which they offered to the United Nations.  When she was turned away, Lee abandoned her family, checked into a Washington, D.C. hotel and went on “a fast for peace” per J.W.’s instructions.  Lee was determined to continue to deprive her body until J.W. sent “a ‘light elevator’ down to take me to Jupiter.”  It never descended.  Lee died 66 days into her “fast for peace” (163-164).

Gloria Lee’s case is not only tragic but showcases one of the key obsessions of both human contactees and their cosmic friends.  Lee went on a hunger strike for peace and peace seems to be the main message that many contactees wish to convey on behalf of the aliens.  As Helen and Betty Mitchell learned of their Red Planet visitors, “Martians—like their Venusian counterparts—apparently spent a lot of time obsessing over atomic bombs and how the people of Earth might end up doing to our current civilization what the Lemurians did to theirs.  (Or to quote George Adamski’s friend Orthon: “Boom Boom!”) (203).

To reiterate, the human/space alien contactee movement stretched from the 1940s through the 1970s, but as a concept, the idea that human contactees have had encounters with wondrous beings can be traced as far back as Greek and Roman mythology, to say nothing of tales found in the Old and New Testament, as well as some of the material excluded from the Bible.  (A couple of quick examples: Think of Zeus’s lascivious encounter with Leda; Actaeon coming upon Artemis at the most inopportune time; Ezekial’s encounter with heavenly beings that descended in a fiery chariot; and Victorians’ alleged encounters with fairy-folk.)  The contactees were so numerous that they began having an annual gathering in Landers, California, on property leased by George Van Tassel (whose own bizarre tale is featured in A is for Adamski).  The group gathered around a boulder called Giant Rock and spent days sharing their cosmic ideas and inventions with one another.  How popular were the annual gatherings?  Supposedly, the 1959 event drew 11,000 True Believers (327).

Gorightly and Bishop have amassed a terrific ride through an era of ufology whose history deserves greater exposure.  Although the stories in the volume are immensely entertaining, they also remind us why so many who engaged in serious UFO studies during the contactee era had a hard time being taken seriously.  (And let’s face it, even sober study of the phenomena draws great skepticism from some and outright ridicule from others.) 

It amazes me how many contactees felt compelled to chronicle their encounters in book form – and at times, in a series of books.  One could probably spend several years – and thousands of dollars – tracking down and reading these largely obscure texts. 

So, what is the difference between contactees and the abductees?  On the most fundamental level, contactees seem to have largely enlightening encounters with their alien visitors; abductees, on the other hand, as the identifying word for these folks indicates, have generally unpleasant encounters with their visitors.

One of the positive aspects of A is for Adamski is the authors’ approach to their subject matter.  Adam Gorightly and Greg Bishop are serious about chronicling the claims of dozens of contactees, but they parcel their information with a wink and nudge delivery that only adds to the fun.

A is for Adamski is must-read for ufology buffs. Earlier, I mentioned the book’s girth.  Let me clarify that it’s good girth.  At an oversized 400 or so pages, the volume resembles one of yesteryear’s big-city telephone books – but much more fun to read! While the cases I covered in this review are admittedly solid examples of the Weird, I didn’t cherrypick and feature the most bizarre stories.  (Case in point, I saved the tale of the man that gave this book its title for your own eye-opening scrutiny.  Let me just say that it involves those infamous tall and fair-skinned Nordic aliens and that Adamski penned three books about his space trips and friendship with Orthon the Nordic.) This is a hefty text that yields hours of entertainment, history, and astonishment over humanity’s wild imagination – and gullibility.  Why the latter?  While it’s clear that many contactees spun yarns to belong to a movement and make a buck, it’s also sadly evident that some believed their own outlandish tales.

– Oscar De Los Santos