George Adamski | |
|---|---|
 Adamski in 1938 | |
| Born | 17 April 1891 |
| Died | 23 April 1965 (aged 74) Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S. |
| Resting place | Arlington National Cemetery |
| Occupation(s) | Self-described "wandering teacher",[1] ufologist |
| Organization(s) | Royal Order of Tibet George Adamski Foundation |
| Known for | Contactee |
| Spouse |
Mary Shimbersky
(m. 1917; died 1954) |
| Children | none |
George Adamski (17 April 1891 – 23 April 1965) was a Polish-American author who became widely known in ufology circles, and to some degree in popular culture, after he displayed numerous photographs in the 1940s and 1950s that he said were of alien spacecraft, claimed to have met with friendly Nordic alien Space Brothers, and claimed to have taken flights with them to the Moon and other planets.[2]
Adamski was the first, and most famous, of several so-called UFO contactees who came to prominence during the 1950s. Adamski called himself a "philosopher, teacher, student and saucer researcher", although most investigators regarded him as a charlatan and a con artist and concluded that his claims were an elaborate hoax.[3]
Adamski authored three books describing his meetings with Nordic aliens and his travels with them aboard their spaceships: Flying Saucers Have Landed (co-written with Desmond Leslie) in 1953, Inside the Space Ships in 1955, and Flying Saucers Farewell in 1961. The first two books were both bestsellers; by 1960 they had sold a combined 200,000 copies.[4] In addition to his contributions to ufology in the United States, Adamski's work became popular in other countries, especially Japan and helped inspire many depictions of aliens and UFOs in postwar Japanese culture and media.[5]
- ^ Zinsstag & Good 1983, pp. 5–6
- ^ Peebles, pp. 93-96
- ^ "The Queen & the Saucers". Time. 1 June 1959. Archived from the original on 13 July 2007. Retrieved 27 April 2007.
- ^ Profile, gutenberg.org; accessed 8 June 2017.
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Robinson, Nick (26 February 2021). "Why do Japanese UFOs look so different?". YouTube. Retrieved 10 April 2021.