Yesterday I was listening to an interview with Ray Stanford, a researcher who met a lot of the 'early contactees', on Greg Bishop's show Radio Misterioso. In the interview Stanford mentions he visited Adamski in the mid-1950s and that the latter confessed the whole thing was a hoax. Ray was there with his twin brother Rex one morning and the two were having drinks with Adamski, and after a couple of those beverages Adamski remarked that 'if it wasn't for that Roosevelt, I wouldn't have gone into this saucer crap.'
This incident was known to me and it certainly looks like something a person would say after being a little intoxicated. Adamski also remarked that he was 'the biggest bootlegger in Southern California'. The Stanford brothers took this as a admission of guilt and this part I've come across in books from other authors. Sofar no biggie.
What was new to me is that Ray Stanford claimed Adamski took him and his brother into his workshop where he showed how he faked photographs using models, black cloths and radium! Of course this is shocking testimony and damaging to Adamski's reputation. I'm sure this anecdote would be the final nail in the coffin for most skeptics. I still have my doubts however.
I could take the 'Korffian skeptical approach' and claim Stanfords memories are impaired after 50 years orso just like with the Roswell witnesses. Or I could claim the testimony is not valid because all persons were drunk. It is remarkably easy to be a skeptic. However, I'm going to do something else. I'll try to be objective.
Ray Stanford was (and is) a UFO researcher, but he was also an "experiencer". In the interview with Greg Bishop, Ray tells about telepathic experiments where he and other people summoned UFOs over the Gulf. Ray also spoke about his 'psychic abilities' and that he made accurate readings and even exposed persons committing foul acts. I guess this shows there are 2 aspects of Ray Stanford, the skeptical scientificly based researcher but also the believer who had his own experiences. Safe to say Ray Stanford is both a skeptic and a believer.
What I find remarkable is that Stanford did a lot of research on the early contactees but quite often reaches a negative conclusion on them despite the fact that Ray saw UFOs himself and knows the phenomenon is real. This morning I saw a remark on a forum where Ray had commented on Howard Menger saying 'that he hoaxed everything but in essence was a good guy', or something of that nature. I wasn't surprised one bit. There's also the episode with Dan Fry where again there are a lot of anecdotes pointing to fraud by the 'contactee'. When a person reaches so many negative conclusions about others in the UFO field but maintains there own experiences are genuine, I have to wonder if that person isn't suffering from 'Billy Meier syndrome.' (Billy Meier consistently labels other people as liars, cheaters and frauds.)
Ray Stanford does hold one anecdote in high esteem. In the Truman Betherum case there's a story where a gold smith receives a work order from a person similar in appearance to what Betherum reported in his contactee accounts. The gold figure, a hand, turns out to be a gift for Betherum and Stanford is stunned by this 'coincedence' and therefore gives Bethrum some credit.
Here comes the kicker. Strange stories such as the one above can be abundantly found in the cases of George Adamski and Howard Menger. Even researcher colleagues of Ray such as C.A. Honey, Bill Hamilton and Timothy Good reported highly unusual experiences while investigating Adamski. Then there are the other dozens of witnesses who claimed to have seen the same crafts Adamski photographed or who experienced strange matters in the presence of Adamski. Madeline Rodeffer claims till this day that the footage Adamski took in 1965 of a 'scoutcraft' is genuine and that she witnessed the whole event. Other credible witnesses such as Major Hans C. Petersen, Basil van den Berg, Fred Steckling, Glenn Steckling, Laura Mundo, Tony Belmonte and many more, claimed to have seen the exact same craft or had similar experiences. If Adamski was such a fraud, as Ray Stanford claims, then why did so many people make supporting testimonies?
Ray Stanford, as a researcher, seems to have missed a lot of supporting anecdotes. In the 'desert encounter' where 6 people signed an affadavit claiming to have witnessed/seeing a large cigar shaped craft, a smaller craft exiting and landing, and Adamski talking to the ufonaut in the distance, Stanford (again) takes a negative approach. He focuses on George Hunt Williamson's retraction (of sorts), but also happens to mention that G.H.W. got in his bed one night! Williamson signed the affadavit but later on in time remarked that maybe they saw a dirigible and toned down the story, this was after he and Adamski had a falling out. However other witnesses such as Lucy McGinnis made no such retraction and stood by the original story decades after the alleged encounter.
I think that at this point I can safely assume that Ray Stanford, by ignoring the positive testimony, has a preference for a negative outcome regarding 'contactees'.
What really happend when Ray and his brother Rex visited Adamski that morning? I don't doubt they visited Adamski. Two teenage boys, just out of high school, having a drink with Adamski. Tongues getting loose, judgement perhaps a bit impaired. I can't say for sure what really happend or what words were really spoken. But I have to wonder if Ray didn't take matters way out of proportion. 'Blaming Roosevelt for getting into that saucer crap' is something a person could say after a few drinks. It's not an admission of guilt, it can also be just talk while under the influence. I also wonder what really was said and shown in that workshop and if similar antics are in play here. I'm leaning towards the opinion that Ray Stanford could have taken things way out of context. To my knowledge there also aren't other similar stories to that of the Stanford brothers where Adamski exposes himself so bluntly.
I do want to make myself clear on this matter. I'm not claiming everything is true in the Adamski case but there are factors which possibly point to something genuine going on there. Dozens of positive eyewitness testimony shouldn't be ignored because there's one negative.
3 comments:
I should correct "Ed V"'s statement that my twin brother and I were drinking with Adamski the morning he exposed his lies about physical contact with human-like aliens and photographing their craft during contacts.
Rex and I were not consuming ALCOHOL in any form. We were in our late teens extreme 'heath-food fanatics'' and we would not have taken any alcohol whatsoever. Although Ed V doesn't say so, it was eggnog Adamski was drinking. Rex and I drank water while Adamski drank several cups of eggnog. Yeah, yeah, we were DRINKING TOGETHER! :o)
As to Ed V's seeming wish that my account to Greg Bishop might be flawed by old and thus distorted memory, that isincorrect. I began right away, in my teens, exposing what Adamski had told and shown us (such as how he faked the mothership photos), so that in the late '50s, I became the hated enemy of contactee supporters.
My files of copies of letters I wrote soon afterward and have written from time to time since then, contain proof that time has not distorted my memory. The premier UFO historian, Jerry Clark, can confirm that I told him about Adamski's confessions decades ago.
It was Adamski's kind-hearted confession to us (I think he didn't want to see us teenagers waste our potentially productive lives wrapped up in his hoaxes.) that made me, afterward, even more determined to record UFOs and their propulsion physics with high-resolution cameras, recording magnetometer, recording gravimeter, spectrum camera, high-resolution audio recording, etc. My project and I have succeed in using all such equipment.
And, by the way, that part of Adamski's confession (that he never had any physical contacts) was made to Rex and me that morning BEFORE Alice had even finished making Adamski's very first cup of eggnog. It was after we came back from looking at Adamski's earliest book, Pioneers of Space, that Adamski drank several eggnogs and told us about, and took us into, his "lab". He wasn't visibly intoxicated at any time, but could have been a bit loosened up from the alcohol.
Finally, keep in mind that when someone has believed things like Adamski's Polish lampshade (aka, "scout ship") photos, and happens to see a domed disc in the sky, there is the perceptual tendency to perceive things in familiar or desired terms. It is unsurprising that while Adamski's photos were being frequently seen in the media, some were misinterpreting the domed disc they saw as closely resembling like the clearer photo images Adamski had provided. To not consider that scientifically demonstrated fact about perception is to display ignorance of human nature. As to persons faking photos deliberately to resemble Adamski's lamp shade (with ping pong balls glued on), as I said on Greg's Radio Mysterioso, Howard Menger crudely painted his 'scout ship' and did obvious 'table-top' photography for his 'on the moon' photos. I notice you didn't mention the Stephen Darbishire 'scout photos' so touted by Leonard Cramp. :) They were a better painted fake than Menger could ever have produced, and Stephen Darbishire's subsequent statements have made the hoax clear to anyone but fools. By the way, Stephen Darbyshire has grown up to be a professional ARTIST. See: http://www.stephen-darbishire.com/
Because of my working at least twelve hours per day toward my project's scientifically diagnostic UFO hard evidence presentation, and preparing materials for the display of my new taxon (genus and species) of dinosaur (a hatchling nodosaur) at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., later this year, I cannot take time to write out all I'd like to tell you, about the Adamski matter, Ed V. Yard".
Ray Stanford
George Hunt Williamson’s letter about the Stanford brothers (written in 1978)
My name is Michel Zirger (Japan). I have many original letters written (typed) by George Hunt Williamson/Michel d’Obrenovic (and a lot of other material, for exemple the original manuscript (ribbon copy) of Other Tongues–Other Flesh with the original November 20, 1952 Desert Center photos attached inside, etc.)
But here is the letter about the Standfords :
« (…) I never really interacted with the Stanfords in any particular way at all. They were with John McCoy on the famous PADRE ISLAND sighting in Texas. (…). It was from that happening & the publicity involved that I first heard of John McCoy, and I contacted him, NOT the Stanfords. Later, after I met John, he introduced me to the Stanfords. I was never favorably impressed for a number of reasons. Their ego trip was a real hang-up ! They attended a few ( but not many) lectures of mine, and they came to South America briefly, but they NEVER came to our « hidden valley » and/or the Outer Retreat of the Brotherhood of the Seven Rays (BOT7R). John McCoy was there, of course. I doubt if they were even in S.A. for more than a week (…). They were never involved in any of our communication or channeling sessions at all. They were only casual acquaintances of mine, and, in fact, never interacted with McCoy on a big scale. They were pretty much loners who seemed to be out « picking brains » and generally « snooping around. » RAY STANFORD later claimed to be channeling BROTHER PHILIP & THE BOT7R himself, but he was not channeling the same thing I was, and when they arrived in S.A. in 1957 (uninvited, I might add !!) they were not invited to participate in our activities, and returned to the USA. I always considered them to be highly opportunistic, and they always had some dirt to « dish out » about most everyone. I’m sorry, (…), but that’s the way they came across. Rex was the worst of the duo, by far. I really think the Stanfords out to be played WAY DOWN in THE VISION QUEST (a book he was written at the time in the late 1970’s – Note from Michel Zirger). They just were not important in my life or activities, and I don’t want to give the impression they were. I repeat : THEY WERE NEVER IN ON ANY IMPORTANT ACTIVITIES OF OURS IN THOSE DAYS, and outside of attending a few of the GHW lectures, were never even in on any important discussions about anything !! (…)
Michel d’Obrenovic (GHW)
George Hunt Williamson’s letter about the Stanford brothers (written in 1978)
My name is Michel Zirger (Japan). I have many original letters written (typed) by George Hunt Williamson/Michel d’Obrenovic (and a lot of other material : his manuscripts (ribbon copies) of Road in the Sky, Secret Places of the Lion, Other Tongues–Other Flesh with the original November 20, 1952 Desert Center photos attached inside, various notebooks, unpublished manuscripts, etc. )
But here is the letter about the Stanfords :
« (…) I never really interacted with the Stanfords in any particular way at all. They were with John McCoy on the famous PADRE ISLAND sighting in Texas. (…). It was from that happening & the publicity involved that I first heard of John McCoy, and I contacted him, NOT the Stanfords. Later, after I met John, he introduced me to the Stanfords. I was never favorably impressed for a number of reasons. Their ego trip was a real hang-up ! They attended a few ( but not many) lectures of mine, and they came to South America briefly, but they NEVER came to our « hidden valley » and/or the Outer Retreat of the Brotherhood of the Seven Rays (BOT7R). John McCoy was there, of course. I doubt if they were even in S.A. for more than a week (…). They were never involved in any of our communication or channeling sessions at all. They were only casual acquaintances of mine, and, in fact, never interacted with McCoy on a big scale. They were pretty much loners who seemed to be out « picking brains » and generally « snooping around. » RAY STANFORD later claimed to be channeling BROTHER PHILIP & THE BOT7R himself, but he was not channeling the same thing I was, and when they arrived in S.A. in 1957 (uninvited, I might add !!) they were not invited to participate in our activities, and returned to the USA. I always considered them to be highly opportunistic, and they always had some dirt to « dish out » about most everyone. I’m sorry, (…), but that’s the way they came across. Rex was the worst of the duo, by far. I really think the Stanfords out to be played WAY DOWN in THE VISION QUEST (a book he was writing at the time in the late 1970’s – Note by Michel Zirger). They just were not important in my life or activities, and I don’t want to give the impression they were. I repeat : THEY WERE NEVER IN ON ANY IMPORTANT ACTIVITIES OF OURS IN THOSE DAYS, and outside of attending a few of the GHW lectures, were never even in on any important discussions about anything !! (…)
Michel d’Obrenovic (George Hunt Williamson)
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