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)

Contactee

The Contactee - The story of George Adamski Pt 2.

(continued from part one - "George Adamski")

On the afternoon of November 20, 1952 (he tells us in Flying Saucers Have Landed ), Adamski had his first encounter face-to-face contact with a man from Space.
During the previous year he had journeyed on several occasions into the Mojave Desert, to areas where saucers were said to be landing. Nothing had come of those excursions. On this day he was trying again. Accompanying him were Alice Wells; his secretary Lucy McGinnis; and four UFO enthusiasts, including Alfred Bailey and George Hunt Williamson.*
They drove about in the desert, watching the sky and following Adamski’s hunches as to a possible landing site. Finally, he ordered that they stop and get out of the car. They roamed on foot now, in the rocky desert terrain. Mountains loomed about them, deceptively close. A strong wind was blowing; and the women tied scarfs around their heads. After a half-hour the party returned to the car for a picnic lunch.

But the saucer watch continued as they scanned the sky and ate. Suddenly, everyone turned to look over a ridge and gaped.
(Pic left and below; a similar cigar shaped craft photographed in Salt Lake City)


As Adamski describes it in Flying Saucers Have Landed : Riding high, and without sound, there was a gigantic cigarshaped silvery ship, without wings or appendages of any kind. Slowly, almost as if it was drifting, it came in our direction; then seemed to stop, hovering motionless. Like a long, narrow cloud, the object hung there in the sky.

* Bailey (a railway conductor) and Williamson (an amateur anthropologist) had recently exchanged radio messages in Morse code—with the occupants of a flying saucer. See their book The Saucers Speak! (New Age, 1954).

pic source; allnewsweb.com

Voices trembling with excitement, they debated the identity of the object. George Hunt Williamson was sure it was a spaceship. Lucy McGinnis deemed it an airplane; but unable to discern any wings, she suddenly changed her mind. Yes, a spaceship! They stared in amazement at the long, narrow craft—not a flying saucer, but a mother ship.
It began to move off. “Someone take me down to the road—quick!” said Adamski.

“That ship has come looking for me and I don’t want to keep them waiting!” Adamski, McGinnis, and Bailey hopped into the car and drove a half-mile down the road. The ship seemed to be following them. Turning onto a dirt road, they drove along a shallow canyon. Adamski pointed to the base of a hill that was where he wanted to set up his telescope and camera. As they arrived at the spot, the ship was directly overhead. Adamski leapt from the car and unpacked his equipment. He told McGinnis and Bailey to leave him and rejoin the others he wanted to be alone. They should return for him in an hour. The car sped away with a trail of dust. Meanwhile, the silver ship was drifting off, like a cloud in the wind. Soon it had disappeared over the mountains. Adamski was alone with his equipment and thoughts. He attached camera to telescope, adjusted the eyepiece.

Then his attention was caught by a flash in the sky. And he saw something—“a beautiful small craft”—drifting between two mountain peaks and settling into a cove. A flying saucer! He began to take pictures. With another flash the saucer moved out of sight. Adamski stood there, camera in hand, awed by the proximity of the saucer. He wondered if its occupants knew he had been taking pictures. And he fell into a reverie. His thoughts were interrupted. Someone was standing about a quarter of a mile away, motioning for Adamski to come over.

As his companions (who would later sign an affidavit attesting to having witnessed the encounter) watched from a distance, Adamski walked toward the man. Strangely, he felt no fear. Hands thrust into the pockets of his windbreaker, he walked confidently and expectantly, as if approaching an old and trusted friend. The man was wearing a jumpsuit. His long, blond hair was blowing in the wind. He was smiling. Adamski halted an arm’s length from the stranger. Now, for the first time I fully realised that I was in the presence of a man from space—A HUMAN BEING FROM ANOTHER WORLD!…The beauty of his form surpassed anything I had ever seen. And the pleasantness of his face freed me of all thought of my personal self. I felt like a little child in the presence of one with great wisdom and much love, and I became very humble within myself… for from him was radiating a feeling of infinite understanding and kindness, with supreme humility.

The spaceman extended his hand. It was slender, with fingers like those of “an artistic woman.” Adamski reached out to shake it. But the spaceman shook his head, and gently placed his palm against Adamski’s. Adamski regarded the man with awe. He was cleanshaven and youthful in appearance. He had a high forehead, green eyes, and a smile that revealed glistening
teeth. His jumpsuit was brown, with a radiant sheen. He wore no jewelry, carried no weapon. The two men began to communicate, via a combination of telepathy, gestures, and facial expressions. The spaceman was from Venus, he informed Adamski. His visit was friendly, but serious in purpose. For he had come to warn us of the dangers of nuclear explosions dangers for both the Earth and its neighbors in the Solar System. Adamski noticed now the saucer in which he had arrived. Bell-shaped and translucent, it was hovering just off the ground in a cove. A scout ship, explained the spaceman, that had emerged from the mother ship seen earlier. As the wind blew their hair and ruffled the bushes around them, Adamski put questions to the spaceman. How did his ship operate? Did the Venusians believe in a Deity? Did they experience death? The spaceman answered the questions. But when Adamski asked to take his
picture, he shook his head. He led Adamski over to the saucer. It wobbled in the wind; and prismatic colors flashed on its surface. Adamski found himself speechless, overcome with joy.
Could he go for a ride? The spaceman shook his head. Could he just step inside and take a look around? No, not at this time. Then the spaceman said goodbye and reboarded his ship. It rose, glided over the mountains, and disappeared from view. Adamski was soon rejoining his party and filling them in on what had happened. He and the others returned to the site, to examine the spaceman’s footprints and to look for traces of the saucer. Then they drove into town for dinner. Two days later an Arizona newspaper ran a story about the encounter. More newspaper coverage followed; and it was not long before Adamski himself was writing a full account of his experience.

The manuscript found its way to the desk of Waveney Girvan, editor-in-chief of a British publishing house. A UFO enthusiast, Girvan says that it “made an immediate appeal to me: I felt I was handling dynamite.” Though fearing the book might bring ridicule upon his imprint, he decided to publish it.* And in the fall of 1953, Flying Saucers Have Landed appeared in bookstores. Coauthored by Adamski and Desmond Leslie (a British ufologist who wrote the historical portion of the book), it describes in detail the encounter in the desert. It also included the latest—and most sensational photos of spacecraft that Adamski had taken through his telescope. In its concluding chapter we are told: Now I am hoping that the spaceman will return again, and that then I will be granted more time to visit with him. Believe me, I am saving up questions. And many of my friends are also accumulating questions. Couldn’t it be possible that he might actually let me have a ride in his ship of the Great Ethers? He would not have to invite me twice.