NZDF declassified RNZAF UFO files

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

# Believers in Flying Saucers Book Notes

2. 1.54

A new and rather persuasive version is given in a volume bearing the assertive title 'Flying Saucers Have Landed,' which consists of two parts written respectively by Desmond Leslie and George Adamski, and published in London by Werner Laurie. Desmond Leslie is a young man of 32 with a Dublin University education and Adamski is a Pole of 62, now an American subject and a lecturer on philosophy. Leslie assembles evidence in support of flying saucers being real from reports covering several hundred years, while Adamski gives a personal experience of observation and what he claims to be an actual account of a meeting with a space man from a flying saucer.

The reader of imaginative science fiction can be forgiven if he treats this somewhat sensational book with reserve. On the evidence of the past it would be quite possible for it to be a work of pure imagination, assembled in its two parts to afford an air of credibility as has often been done in the past.

Even the photographs could be inventions because they bear a striking resemblance to rather old-fashioned fancy electric lamp fixtures. Then there are photostatic copies of affidavits certifying to the truth of Adamski's report of his meeting with a space man and his superficial examination of a flying saucer in which the visitor from Venus is supposed to have travelled.

## Scepticism

If the authors should be affronted at such scepticism they could only blame it on that long succession of

How real are flying saucers? In addition to a great number of reports from all over the world about individual and group observations of strange aerial phenomena, several books have been written on the subject claiming that such things do exist, as the means of transport from other planets.

Imaginative writers who have led readers to be wary. But their fierce arguments in support of the theory that flying saucers, reported from all parts of the world with extraordinary frequency over a period of some centuries, carry some conviction. Many people all over the world have an open mind on this question and are ready to believe that the whole thing is something more than hallucinations in spite of Governments' refusal to believe in flying saucers. Individuals and groups in many parts are now endeavouring to find the truth of the question.

Desmond Leslie shows intense scorn for the official attitude on the question and argues that it is possible for beings on other planets to be further advanced than earthlings, who expect themselves to travel in outer space within a century. He tabulates from the year 1619 reports of strange objects seen in the sky and these run into hundreds and appear to differ from the conventional sightings of meteors and other celestial phenomena which are readily understood.

There seems to have been a remarkable revival of strange aerial activity since the end of the war. It will be remembered that in 1947 it was first reported that flying saucers had been seen streaking

across Sweden from the direction of Russia. It was then feared that the Soviet Union had made a revolutionary discovery in a new type of aircraft, but almost simultaneously similar objects were seen in many other parts, including New Zealand.

## Man From Venus

George Adamski claims to have made prolonged observations with his own telescopes from near Mount Palomar in California, location of the famous 200-inch astronomical telescope. His account suggests that friendly flying saucer craft appeared in his vicinity and that later he had a "hunch" that if he travelled to certain desert country he might actually make contact. On one of these excursions, he claims, he went off on his own and met a strange being in the shape of a man with a radiant and beautiful appearance and actually had a conversation with this individual, which he reports in detail. The "space man" did not understand English, but "caught on" rapidly enough to make himself understood. Afterwards Adamski accompanied this being back to his flying saucer in which a second individual had remained. Friends of Adamski, who had accompanied him but were not actually within earshot, are alleged to have sworn to the correctness of the account. The visitor claimed he came from Venus on a friendly mission.

The publishers state that "this is one of the most startling books ever published." The claim is not ill founded, but many readers are likely to demand more authority for the contents of the book than has been provided. But whether it is fiction or factual, the book makes interesting reading and gives much food for thought.