Looking for Orthon: The Story of George Adamski, the First Flying Saucer Contactee, and How He Changed the WorldOn November 20, 1952, George Adamski first made contact with extraterrestrials-including a long-haired youth from Venus named Orthon-in the California desert.or so he claimed. He offered photographic proof. He wrote books about his encounters, including the sensational bestseller Flying Saucers Have Landed. He never stopped advocating the truth of his claims even as he came under extraordinary ridicule. And in the process, however inadvertently, Adamski invented the modern mass counterculture. This new edition of Colin Bennett's modern classic posits, in the author's uniquely engaging style, Adamski as a kind of unwitting performance artist who "structured one of the most blatant acts of visionary cheek of the twentieth century," introducing the jittery postwar Western world to the image of the UFO, which confounded and tweaked authority while also fully embodying Cold War neuroses. Whether Adamski was telling the truth or not is almost irrelevant-though Bennett has his own ideas about Adamski's veracity. What remains compelling about Adamski's bizarre and compelling tale of alien visitations is the transformative power of stories, even if they're false, to warp our culture on a grand scale. In the course of a delightfully misspent youth, COLIN BENNETT was employed as both a musician and as a mercenary soldier. He was far better at the second than at the first. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford, he is the author of the novels Infantryman and The Entertainment Bomb, and paranormal nonfiction including Politics of the Imagination, a biography of Charles Fort; and An American Demonology, about the head of the 1950s UFO-hunting agency Project Blue Book. |
Contents
| 8 | |
| 33 | |
| 47 | |
CHAPTER 5 | 68 |
CHAPTER 7 | 88 |
CHAPTER 9 | 110 |
CHAPTER 12 | 131 |
CHAPTER 14 | 147 |
CHAPTER 15 | 187 |
Afterword | 210 |
Acknowledgments | 224 |
Other editions - View all
Looking for Orthon: The Story of George Adamski, the First Flying Saucer ... Colin Bennett No preview available - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
Adamski says Air Force Al Bailey Alice alien American appeared asked Baker believe Britain British Bryant Reeve California called certainly Charles Fort claimed confusions contactees course craft culture described desert contact Desmond Leslie early Earth event experience fantastic fiction film Flying Saucer Mystery Fortean Frank Scully George Adamski George Hunt Williamson happened Howard Menger human Hunrath idea images imagination Inside the Spaceships Intelligence interest kind later lecture Leslie's live look Lou Zinsstag Lucy McGinnis Madeleine meeting Melanesian metaphors mind modern Moseley mountain mystical never object Orthon Palomar Gardens perhaps Pflock photographs pilot planet Project Blue Book psychic published radio Rodeffer rumors Ruppelt Saucers Have Landed scientific scientists seen ship shot sightings skeptics social society space strange talk tell things Timothy tion told UFO phenomenon ufology Unidentified Flying Objects Untold Story USAF Venus writer young
References to this book
A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America Michael Barkun Limited preview - 2003 |