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George Adamski


Adamski: Real or Fake?

  • Real

    Votes: 1 6.7%
  • Fake

    Votes: 12 80.0%
  • Some of it is Real

    Votes: 2 13.3%

  • Total voters
    15
Since you asked, way back in the 1950's, Jim Moseley, who now publishes Saucer Smear, ran an "Adamski Expose Issue," in which it was demonstrated that Adamski's alleged contact in the California desert never happened. At the same time, it was also shown that Adamski was peddling the same beliefs long before his 1952 claim.

My opinion is that some of these so-called contactees may have either had a genuine experience of one sort or another or certain beliefs that they wanted to express. They either extrapolated a series of contacts from scratch or enhanced the experiences they really had.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
My opinion is that some of these so-called contactees may have either had a genuine experience of one sort or another or certain beliefs that they wanted to express. They either extrapolated a series of contacts from scratch or enhanced the experiences they really had.

Its amazing how many times I've heard this over the years for different cases. It almost like no one can really 100% debunk these contactee guys.
 
ufoman said:
Gene Steinberg said:
My opinion is that some of these so-called contactees may have either had a genuine experience of one sort or another or certain beliefs that they wanted to express. They either extrapolated a series of contacts from scratch or enhanced the experiences they really had.

Its amazing how many times I've heard this over the years for different cases. It almost like no one can really 100% debunk these contactee guys.
Well, certainly there is no evidence that Adamski's reported contacts occurred. At the same time, how are we to know that nothing ever happened to him? We don't! At worst, he used the contacts as a means to express his own political and religious viewpoints.

As to other contactees, I don't buy the claims, but leave this possibility open, even if it's slight in most cases.
 
Gene, six people did sign an affadavit that they witnessed the original desert encounter. Would that fall under the category of a 'notarized document'? Since I don't live in the states I wonder if you sign an affadavit which is deliberately false, would the person be punishable by law?
 
TerraX said:
Gene, six people did sign an affadavit that they witnessed the original desert encounter. Would that fall under the category of a 'notarized document'? Since I don't live in the states I wonder if you sign an affadavit which is deliberately false, would the person be punishable by law?
They were actuallyi not close enough to see anything, and the reputations of one or two of the people who signed that document were suspect. I believe the contents of that expose issue are included in Jim's book from several years ago, "Shockingly Close to the Truth."

Then there is the case of Howard Menger and the peculiar lunch meeting Jim Moseley and I had with him way back in 1964 or 1965 or thereabouts. I'll talk about that elsewhere.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
They were actuallyi not close enough to see anything, and the reputations of one or two of the people who signed that document were suspect. I believe the contents of that expose issue are included in Jim's book from several years ago, "Shockingly Close to the Truth."
Hi Gene, while you didn't address the question regarding the matter of the affadavit I've also read comments in one of Timothy Good's book by one of the witnesses that they did see something and even more to the point, Lucy McGinnis describes something similar as to what your friend David Biedney experienced.
"In 1979 researcher Timothy Good interviewed Lucy McGinnis, here's what she said some 27 years later;
"Here came this great big ship that looked like a dirigible, she confirmed. And George said, quick, get me up there. I want to go and set up the telescope. So I drove him and Al Bailey up to where he said we should go. I kept looking out of the car and that ship turned and just followed us. And he said, here stop! So I stopped, and he got out, and that dirigible stopped - quite a ways away. I couldn't very well judge how far away it was. And he set up the telescope. And after he got everything set up, he said, now you go back."

"My attention was attracted by a flash in the sky and almost instantly a beautifull small craft appeared to be drifting through a saddle between two of the mountain peaks and settling silently into one of the coves about half a mile from me. It did not lower itself entirely below the crest, while the upper, or dome section, remained above the crest and in full sight of the rest of my party who were back there watching. Yet it was in such a position that I could see the entire ship"

Timothy Good asked Lucy how much she was able to see of the face-to-face contact itself;
"You couldn't see very much detail that far away, she explained, they were far away enough to look like fenceposts. But they stood talking to each other, and we saw them turn and go back to the ship. Now I didn't see (Orthon) get into the ship. And when it left, it was just like a bubble or kind of like bright light that lifted up. Then George went out on the highway and he motioned for us to come out. He told us that he got too close and his arm had caught in the radiation from the craft. And he suffered from that
quite for a while....You could see where the two of them had walked on the ground.There's no question about that at all."

Source: Timothy Good - Alien Base

Seems to me Gene that Moseley's account differs from one of the witnesses but if I'm not mistaken Moseley first took the path of the researcher yet later became a kind of journalistic (skeptic) commentator that approached the subject with humour and sarcasm.
Then there is the case of Howard Menger and the peculiar lunch meeting Jim Moseley and I had with him way back in 1964 or 1965 or thereabouts. I'll talk about that elsewhere.
Love to hear about it. Maybe Howard Menger is something to be discussed in a seperate thread.
 
TerraX said:
Seems to me Gene that Moseley's account differs from one of the witnesses but if I'm not mistaken Moseley first took the path of the researcher yet later became a kind of journalistic (skeptic) commentator that approached the subject with humour and sarcasm.
When this issue was published, Jim was in his mostly serious mode, and that particular issue was very serious. I would look it up before you take Good's report seriously. I mean, do you really think Adamski met people from Venus?
 
Gene Steinberg said:
When this issue was published, Jim was in his mostly serious mode, and that particular issue was very serious. I would look it up before you take Good's report seriously.
Timothy Good has an excellent reputation as an author and ufology-researcher and wrote several books that topped the bestsellers lists;
Timothy Good - UFO Authority
Timothy Good - Book Reviews
Before you conclude that Good is strictly a 'believer' it's also worthy to mention that Good has a lot of criticism on the Adamski case and isn't reluctant to point out the discrepancies.
I mean, do you really think Adamski met people from Venus?
No, I don't think they are 'from' Venus. ;)
 
TerraX said:
Timothy Good has an excellent reputation as an author and ufology-researcher and wrote several books that topped the bestsellers lists;
Timothy Good - UFO Authority
Timothy Good - Book Reviews
Before you conclude that Good is strictly a 'believer' it's also worthy to mention that Good has a lot of criticism on the Adamski case and isn't reluctant to point out the discrepancies.
I would suggest that you also check pages 333 through 352 in Moseley's book, which is available from Amazon Books at this link:


Once you've done that, we can talk about this matter in a more illuminating fashion. Bear in mind that Moseley's magazine was published in 1957, originally, and is thus closer to the actual reports.
 
This video by Adamski looks pretty suspect to me. I wish David would take a look. I will say that when I evaluate a case I look at everything not just the video or pictures.

 
ufoman said:
This video by Adamski looks pretty suspect to me. I wish David would take a look. I will say that when I evaluate a case I look at everything not just the video or pictures.

We all only have so much energy and time to investigate all the claims. In this case, the alleged object seems to be in better focus than the background, which would be a classic indication of using a small model for this particular venture in fakery.

I'm sure David would be willing to consider something that seemed authentic at first glance, but that's something hard to come by.
 
Well maybe one day when he's not that busy he could take a look at it & maybe post a few sentences on it. It would be nice to get his opinion of it.
 
Oh, Jeez, what next, flying turds?

This is terrible, obviously fake footage.

I need an aspirin...

One of the most consistent elements of what I would consider compelling UFO cases are the types of motion of the objects, which generally far into one of two categories:

- More common: smooth, almost gliding motion which can change on a dime, without the kind of jerky motion seen in this footage - and other stuff I've been forced to look at recently. ;) Sometimes there's a little wobble, but nothing that would look like an object suspended from a string/cable, with significant yaw.

- Much less common: an odd, soft motion which has been described as a leaf falling through the air, but again, without the jerkiness, and which can instantly change to the previous type - almost like riding magnetic/gravity fields like a boat on water, and then kicking in stabilizers, or something along those lines.

The stuff I've seen pretty much falls into the first. And there are other types of reported motion, but it's usually #1.

Just my $0.02

dB
 
The issue of visual realism & UFOs

Folks,

I've been thinking about this whole issue of UFO footage, and overall believability.

Here's something to consider:

Remember 9.11 and the images we saw that day? They were like nothing that had ever been seen before. I can't remember ever watching a movie were jet airliners crashed into skyscrapers. Now think about the footage that came out of that day, especially all shots of the second plane hitting the south tower. One of the most striking things about that imagery was the sense of hyper-reality, the idea that "oh, man, that looks like it belongs in a movie", but no movie anyone had ever seen. There was nothing fake about the way those planes impacted those towers.

There were other elements of that day that really resonate with me - one of my closest friends, Scott Myers, who lived in a penthouse apartment 1.5 blocks away from the towers, with his (then) pregnant wife and young son. On a normal weekday, Scott would have been walking Taylor to school, passing directly underneath the towers, but Taylor wasn't feeling well that day, so they were home. After the first impact, Scott grabbed a DV camera and set it up on his deck, on a tripod. He left it running, and then went back into the apartment to make sure Claire and Taylor weren't alone. The camera was recording when the second plane hit.

I was living on the west coast, and by the time I heard and saw the buildings collapsing on TV at a friend's house (I haven't had broadcast TV for about 10 years or so), I was extremely concerned for Scott and his family. To make a long story much shorter, I was the first person who Scott was able to reach on the phone later that day,got the FBI on the phone, alerted them to Scott's situation and the footage. It's a long story.

His footage was the closest shot to the actual episode, in terms of proximity, and also had the benefit of being completely stable. The NIST used it to determine that the south tower swayed for minutes after collision.

Anyway, that footage was hyper-real, and had a very intense effect on me. It's like your brain _knows_ when it's seeing something genuine, even though it has no direct reference for what it's seeing. There's a shortness of breath, a buzzing rush of blood to the ears. an intense focus and something akin to paralysis in that moment, it's really unique and scary. I've watched those seconds of video many, many times, and it never fails to make me feel the same way. It's not the knowledge that people were dying at that moment, it was that it couldn't really be happening, but it was, and my eyes let my brain know that this was genuine. It's the exact same feeling that one gets the moment of seeing a true UFO, in a situation where your brain knows it ain't Venus, a balloon or a flock of birds. There really is no way to completely describe that feeling. It's totally unique.

Think about what your mind does when you see footage like this junk, and much of the other stuff passed off as genuine UFOs. Your brain does more of the work in that first moment or two than you are aware of, and instantly tells you something is wrong. We seem so bent on ignoring our intuition, and instead look for external validation and confirmation.

I say follow your gut reaction, 9 out of 10 times it's right, especially when it comes to visual sensory input, our main interface to the external world and probably the most evolved of the human senses. Millions of years of fine tuning is a useful thing.

Does any of this make sense?

dB
 
David Biedny said:
Folks,

I've been thinking about this whole issue of UFO footage, and overall believability.

Here's something to consider:

Remember 9.11 and the images we saw that day? They were like nothing that had ever been seen before. I can't remember ever watching a movie were jet airliners crashed into skyscrapers. Now think about the footage that came out of that day, especially all shots of the second plane hitting the south tower. One of the most striking things about that imagery was the sense of hyper-reality, the idea that "oh, man, that looks like it belongs in a movie", but no movie anyone had ever seen. There was nothing fake about the way those planes impacted those towers, and there's a story about my experiences that day, when one of my closest friends, Scott Myers, who lived in a penthouse apartment 1.5 blocks away from the towers had the cool, calm state of mind to set up his DV camera on a tripod after the first impact, and the camera was recording when the second plane hit. His footage was the closest shot to the actual episode, in terms of proximity, and also had the benefit of being completely stable. The NIST used Scott's footage to determine that the south tower swayed for minutes after collision, and there's a whole secondary story about how I was the first person who Scott was able to reach on the phone that day, and how I had to spend significant time with the FBI to get them to Scott and the footage (his wife was 8 months pregnant, laying in their bed looking right up at the towers)...

Anyway, that footage was hyper-real, your brain _knows_ when it's seeing something genuine, even though it has no direct reference for what it's seeing. There's a feeling of lack of breath, intense focus and something akin to paralysis in that moment, like nothing else I could describe. I've watched those seconds of video many, many times, and it never fails to make me feel like how I just described. It's not the knowledge that people were dying at that moment, it was that it couldn't really be happening, but it was, and my eyes let my brain know that this was genuine. It's the exact same feeling that one gets the moment of seeing a UFO, especially in a situation where your brain knows it ain't Venus, a balloon or a flock of birds. There really is no way to completely describe that feeling. It's totally unique.

Think about what your mind does when you see footage like this junk, and much of the other stuff passed off as genuine UFOs. Your brain does more of the work in that first moment or two than you are aware of, and instantly tells you something is wrong. We seem so bent on ignoring our intuition, and instead look for external validation and confirmation.

I say follow your gut reaction, 9 out of 10 times it's right, especially when it comes to visual sensory input, our main interface to the external world and probably the most evolved of the human senses. Millions of years of fine tuning is a useful thing.

Does any of this make sense?

dB
David raises an extremely important issue here: Virtually every UFO photo I've seen is blurry, shaky, and ambiguous. Where the image is clear, it is most often faked; rather poorly in fact. The photos tend to be controversial, and it always leaves room for skeptics to question their authenticity.

Today, our imaging technology is such that almost anything can be faked in a compelling fashion. This is unfortunate, because the real thing may be in our midst, but we won't believe it. On the other hand, as David says, you'll know it when you see it :)
 
Gene Steinberg said:
I would suggest that you also check pages 333 through 352 in Moseley's book, which is available from Amazon Books at this link:
Once you've done that, we can talk about this matter in a more illuminating fashion. Bear in mind that Moseley's magazine was published in 1957, originally, and is thus closer to the actual reports.
With all due respect, I don't need to read Moseley's book to have some knowledge of the case. Moseley took the approach of the skeptic pretty early on in his investigation and tried to set up Adamski with his 'Straith Letter'. As far as I'm concerned Moseley isn't the one here conducting a balanced investigation and deliberate fraud (Straith Letter) doesn't work for his reputation. And this is the same guy that claimed other peoples reputations weren't in order? What's "illuminating" about him? Geesh Gene.
 

In defense of this 1965 footage I would like to point out something unusual which is clearly visible. Adamski's alleged spacecraft has 3 ball-shaped objects underneath, I think most here know what I'm talking about. One of those ball shaped objects, the one on the right, is moving up and down like it is retracting in the ship. Have a look at the footage a couple of times. Does that support the idea that this is a model or does it rule out that this is a model and how could such thing be done at the time?

To make matters more complicated, Madeline Rodeffer who owned the camera which Adamski used to shoot the movie claimed to have witnessed the entire event (along with 3 other unnamed witnesses) and maintains till this day that the footage is genuine and that she saw a large object with human figures inside. She has gone on record with this a number of times including at lectures. Nonetheless the footage is still highly controversial and even Adamski and Rodeffer note that it could have been tampered with while in processing.
 
TerraX said:
Gene Steinberg said:
I would suggest that you also check pages 333 through 352 in Moseley's book, which is available from Amazon Books at this link:
Once you've done that, we can talk about this matter in a more illuminating fashion. Bear in mind that Moseley's magazine was published in 1957, originally, and is thus closer to the actual reports.
With all due respect, I don't need to read Moseley's book to have some knowledge of the case. Moseley took the approach of the skeptic pretty early on in his investigation and tried to set up Adamski with his 'Straith Letter'. As far as I'm concerned Moseley isn't the one here conducting a balanced investigation and deliberate fraud (Straith Letter) doesn't work for his reputation. And this is the same guy that claimed other peoples reputations weren't in order? What's "illuminating" about him? Geesh Gene.
The Adamski Expose issue is not a hoax, and Jim is not the only person writing content for it. Read the issue, and then we'll talk.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
The Adamski Expose issue is not a hoax, and Jim is not the only person writing content for it. Read the issue, and then we'll talk.
Sorry Gene, I don't feel obliged to purchase Moseley's and Pflock's book since a lot of controversy surrounding Adamski's tales and conduct is visible in other books and on the internet by various people. I do find it a little awkward that you insist I should read Moseley's book in order to continue the conversation. On the internet there's a lot to be found on Moseley, Pflock and Barker including their past CIA affiliations. Makes me wonder in turn how far you must look for government interest in the UFO field. Here's an interview with Moseley where he comments about his carreer in the field. I suspect that Barker's 'charming' poetry also doesn't go well with the 'politically correct' but that's not what these guys are about, right?
http://www.elfis.net/tem/J. Moseley.html

Moseley;
"A: 1964. At this time there was a man in Boston with a radio and T.V. show named Bob Kennedy (not THE Bob Kennedy of course.) I appeared on his show a few times, and they were also working with speaker's bureau who booked Donald Keyhoe to speak about the saucer stuff. They also booked the college lecture circuit and Keyhoe was starting to charge too much. This is where I really stepped in some shit. Bob Kennedy gave my name to this bureau and since I hated Keyhoe anyway, this was the best luck of all. He was charging too much, so I started getting his gigs. I would have gone for free just to knock Keyhoe off the lecture circuit. (Stanton) Friedman hadn't come along yet, and he didn't push me off the circuit 'till years later. I did over a hundred colleges and got well paid for it for the time. Saucer News circulation shot up to about 10,000 for awhile, and I got on all kinds of shows, etc. I finally had to hire a staff to keep up, including Tim Beckley, who worked there for a couple of years. This was all because of the marsh gas! Then in the early '70s, Friedman came along and did to me what I had done to Keyhoe. Actually, he was vicious about it. He would find out which colleges I was lecturing at and call them up and try to get them to knock me off and book him. He had the degree and the beard and I didn't. The colleges kept calling me to inform me what he had been doing--sometimes more than once to the same places."
 
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