Pinnacle of Success (George Adamsky)

Pinnacle of Success - The George Adamsky story pt.4
Continued from "Aboard the Ships" (George Adamsky Pt 3)
And he would continue to benefit from them—as author, lecturer, and celebrity. His books were selling, and drawing national attention to Adamski—the man who had traveled in flying saucers! Who had photographed them! Not only was he in demand as a speaker (in 1958 he and C. A.Honey, his chief assistant, completed a 4000-mile lecture tour), but as a guest on radio and television shows. He and his followers had sold Palomar Gardens, and purchased a property further up the mountain. Among the buildings they raised on the new site were accommodations for a growing number of visitors. These included persons who came to study Cosmic Law (some of them widows with large bank accounts), and also a longhaired, bearded contingent: West Coast beatniks who “dug” the outrageousness of Adamski. Other marginal types were also showing up. Lamented Lucy McGinnis: “You would be surprised to learn how many mediums come with ‘special messages’ for G.A. People of all branches of religion and metaphysics drive up to enlighten and save him. Some are very difficult to talk to, but we do our best to be patient and friendly at all times.” * And visiting from time to time was Adamski’s brother, a Catholic priest. He and George would engage in long discussions. No doubt they touched upon organized religion, of which Adamski seems to have strongly disapproved. For some time now Adamski had been coordinating a network of correspondents. These devoted followers known as “co-workers”—received from Mount Palomar a newsletter, the Cosmic Bulletin, that kept them posted on the activities of the Space People. They corresponded with one another and organized study groups. The network extended beyond the borders of the U.S., and was to prove useful in 1959 when George Adamski embarked upon a world tour. The tour had been prompted, he insisted, by the Space People, who had told him to go forth and explain the reasons for their coming. It began in New Zealand, in January, then moved on to Australia, England, Holland, and Switzerland. Co-workers in each country had arranged meetings, lectures, and publicity. From its start the tour was a success. The lectures (which included a film) were attended by overflow crowds. Australia was particularly gratifying. When his plane landed in Sidney, a crowd of reporters, curiosity seekers, and saucer enthusiasts (whom Adamski describes in Flying Saucers Farewell as “wonderful men and women who are dedicated to seeking out the peaceful, productive means by which we shall earn our rightful, dignified position among the civilizations of other planets”) converged on him; and he held a press conference. The ensuing publicity helped fill the lecture halls. * Quoted in Lou Zinsstag,UFO… "George Adamski, Their Man on Eart" (UFO Photo Archives, 1990). Then it was on to England, where he lectured to large crowds and appeared in a television debate with an astronomer. (Adamski claims to have won the debate through “sheer dignity.”) But the high point of the tour came in Holland. Just before his arrival, Adamski learned—to his surprise and glee—that the country’s ruler, Queen Juliana, wished to meet with him. Juliana had a penchant for the mystical. (Her attachment several years earlier to a faith-healer had prompted calls for her abdication; but she had weathered the crisis.) Having heard that the man who had gone up in a flying saucer was about to visit her domain, the Queen wanted to talk with the fellow. Adamski checked into a hotel in The Hague. The next day a royal limousine picked him up and drove him to the Palace. As he was led inside, Adamski (pleased with himself ) was saluted by guards, doormen, and attendants. The audience took place in the library. Wearing a stately blue frock, the Queen was flanked by Prince Bernhard, her science advisers, and the Air Force Chief of Staff. Unable to dissuade the Queen from meeting with an obvious charlatan (as they viewed Adamski), these men had sought to form a protective group about her. Adamski was “nervous with anticipation” (he recalls in Flying Saucers Farewell ), “but a feeling of calm and ease came over me as I stood in the presence of the Queen.…I completely forgot all the instructions and could not remember the formalities that should have followed. Instead, I acted upon my feelings, for here was a feeling of welcome as among friends.” Coffee and pastries were served. Then, for nearly two hours, Adamski regaled Her Majesty with an account of his adventures in Space. The Queen listened politely and attentively. Her advisers, however, kept asking Adamski questions designed to discredit him. The space traveler remained undaunted. At one point he insisted officials in the U.S. were withholding information on UFOs, and asked the Queen if the same situation might not exist in Holland. Her Majesty gave “a tiny smile of acknowledgement.” When the audience was over, both the Queen and the Prince shook Adamski’s hand. The firmness of their handshakes impressed him. Of the Prince’s he would remark: “It was one of those handshakes which mean more than words. I felt he was in agreement with me.” And climbing back into the royal limousine, Adamski was returned to his hotel. Meanwhile, word of Juliana’s meeting with a flying saucer contactee had spread—and Holland was thrown into an uproar. Declared one newspaper: “A shame for our country.” Another paper was more accommodating: “We are not opposed to a court jester on the green lawns of the Royal Palace, provided he is not taken for an astronomical philosopher.” In an interview the Air Force Chief dismissed Adamski: “The man’s a pathological case.” But Juliana seemed to have enjoyed her meeting with the man who had been to Space. Said one of her advisers: “The Queen showed an extraordinary interest in the whole subject.” And Adamski who went on to lecture before soldout houses in The Hague and Amsterdam stated that Her Majesty had been “very interested…I wish everyone had a mind as open to progress and I don’t mean gullible as I experienced today.”* The next stop on the tour was Switzerland. He waspicked up at the train station and taken to a hotel by coworker Lou Zinsstag.** In her book; George Adamski: Their Man on Earth, Zinsstag has described his stay in Switzerland. A memorable moment, she says, came in Basle, where she and Adamski encoun-tered one of the Space People. They were sitting in a sidewalk cafe at the time, having a conversation. The only other patron was a blond man in sunglasses, whom Adamski kept eyeing. The man finally got up and left, smiling at them as he walked by. Adamski explained to her that the stranger was one of the Space People. But Switzerland was also the scene of something new in Adamski’s career: organized hostility. The first sign that trouble was brewing came at his opening lecture in Zurich. The lecture was attended by a sympathetic audience; and when it was over, a question-and-answer session was held. Suddenly, a man stalked to the front and insisted that the questioning was a stage-managed sham. He also accused Adamski of being not the real Adamski, but an impersonator. The man refused to give his name and departed hastily from the hall. The following day Adamski delivered a second lecture, at a larger hall that was filled to capacity. But many in the crowd were university students who had come to disrupt the event. They proceeded to do so. After each of his sentences they stamped their feet and clapped. They hollered, sang, tossed fruit. Adamski gave up trying to speak and called for the film to be shown. But as the lights dimmed, trumpets and noisemakers began to sound. Firecrackers exploded. A searchlight was beamed at the screen. After a woman was struck by a tossed beer bottle, the police ordered everyone to leave. The students, it would seem, were simply out for some raucous fun. But Adamski blamed the disruption on “the Silence Group,” a cabal dedicated to supressing the truth about flying saucers. His next scheduled stop was Rome. But the rigors of touring, the incident at Zurich, and the summer heat had taken their toll on the 68-year-old lecturer. He cancelled his remaining appearances and flew back to America. Zinsstag describes his ddeparture from the airport: “While standing in a queue, he suddenly took me in his arms and gave me a huge kiss. I have seldom been so astonished in my life of a kiss, I mean.” She was one of those “wonderful men and women” dedicated to spreading the word about the Space People; and Their Man on Earth was appreciative. * Adamski’s meeting with the Queen brings to mind Groucho Marx’s encounters with the society matron played by Margaret Dumont. ** Zinsstag was cousin to Carl Jung, the noted psychologist. In his bookFlying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies (Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1959), Jung posits that UFOs are archetypes “psychological projections” that express the fears and yearnings of the Unconscious—visionary images of wholeness and order. Zinsstag tried unsuccessfully to convince him they were actual spacecraft, piloted by extraterrestrials. She also sought, unsuccessfully, to get him to meet with Adamski.

Continued from "Aboard The Ships" (George Adamsky story Pt.3)
The Contactee (George Adamsky Pt. 2)
George Adamsky (Pt.1)