A UFO story/hoax that fascinated me then and still....
David Richie, in hisUFO book [op. cit] writes that "In 1954, only a few months after American 'contactee' George Adamski claimed to have met an extraterrestrial in the southwestern desert of the United States, one 'Cedric Allingham' published a book titled Flying Saucer from Mars, his [Allingham's] encounter in Britain with aliens from Mars." [Page 7 ff.]
Pictures from FLYING SAUCERS OVER LOS ANGELES: THE UFO CRAZE OF THE 50'S by Dewayne B. Johnson and Kenn Thomas with commentary by David Hatcher Childress [Adventures Unlimited Press, IL, 1998]
"Allingham" provided a photos of the Mars craft and the Martian(s) in it:
The Mars Ship looked remarkably like George Adamski's ubiquitous (at the time) "scout craft":
"Cedric Allingham" turned out, it is said, to have been popular, noted, British amateur astronomer Patrick Moore, seen here in his early years, and later in life:
Moore perpetrated his Mars hoax/book to show, ostensibly, the foolishness of flying saucer enthusiasts and the public.
(I don't buy that exactly.....which I'll get into in a bit.)
Wikipedia provides a rather thorough treatment of Patrick Moore which you can read HERE.
Wikipedia also provides a treatment of the Allingham story/hoax which you can read HERE.
Patrick Moore, as Wikipedia recounts, never admitted to the hoax and even threatened lawsuits against anyone who suggested such a thing.
Sir Patrick Moore went to his grave, not disclosing whether he created the Mars book and story nor his part in the alleged confabulation.
Now I'm flummoxed.
What was the point of all the creative hoaxing if one doesn't fulfill the premise for the hoax?
(That's my problem with colleague Anthony Bragalia's Socorro hoax theory. No one has really come forward to admit the hoax and its purpose. Mr. Bragalia says it was local college students getting back at Officer Zamora who, supposedly harassed them.)
In the Allingham incident, did Moore tweak his fellow Brits, showing them to be gullible or ignorant when it came to flying saucer tales?
No, he didn't, not in any overt way.
The Mars book, photos, and "encounter" languished and today is an interesting (to me and Christopher Allan aka CDA) UFO footnote or nostalgic throwback to a time when, in our youth, we thought (at least I did) that Adamski and Allingham actually had the experiences they told us they had.
Patrick Moore became renown for his astronomical oeuvre, especially about the Moon.
So one can see his hesitancy to come clean if he had produced the Allingham Mars story as time went on.
But the initial thrust took place before he was exceptionally well-known and a respected member of British society. He was a kind of renegade in the early 50s and even afterwards.
He lied about his age to get into the RAF during World War II.
And he wrote fiction (as you read in the Wikipedia piece).
And "he once joined the Flat Earth Society as an ironic joke"," Wikipedia tells us.
But why the Mars hoax, based, derivatively on Adamski's confabulation?
With no denouement?
I don't see anywhere that Patrick Moore married. Also he had an inordinate closeness to his mother. (Freud would have much to say about that.)
But still, why an identification with Adamski? It surely wasn't a distant homoerotic attraction.
PSYCHIATRIC DICTIONARY, Fourth Edition [op. cit], indicates that "It is a common misconception that conscious emulation can lead to unconscious identification". [Page 373]
But "According to Balint: 'After we have taken mental possession of a portion of the external world by means of identification, mental material which has thus been assimilated can itself serve as a basis or further identifications. [Page 374]
What does that mean?
Moore/Allingham was entranced, as were I and CDA, by the Adamski tales. He identified with Adamski's creative flying saucer accounts.
He wanted to do something like Adamski had done, either fictionally or by way of a hoot.
Adamski beat him to the punch. All Moore could do was emulate Adamski, by making up his (Moore's) own flying saucer tale, a visit from Mars.
It wasn't unique certainly, but it did work, for a while.
Moore/Allingham had, like Adamski, an imagined transcendent experience.
It was a psychosis of association, or creative folie `a deux.
This is what the Pascagoula boys (Hickson and Parker) experienced. And the Hills.
Moore, like me (and maybe CDA) was so caught up in the 50's flying saucer mania that he had to be part of it. (I started a Flying Saucer Club in high school. I'd be interested in what -- the now -- "uber-skeptic CDA did at the time, if anything.)
Anyway, that's my take on this almost obscure flying saucer moment.
{ 0 comments... Skip Comments }
Add Your Comment