Adamski's Venusian encounter: a reader asks, Hind replies

What was reported

Prompted by the television programme UAPs: Miracle of the Unknown, Ms K. Chan Jack of Harare asks Hind's opinion of George Adamski's claimed meeting with a being from Venus. She remembers an old 1950s or early-1960s book on the encounter, and gained the impression that his alien's origin had shifted from Venus to somewhere beyond the solar system once space probes showed Venus could support no such life; the pendant and other gifts strike her as suspicious. Hind replies that most leading ufologists reject Adamski outright and she tends to agree, though later reports make her think he may have seen something genuinely unknown. She cites his self-conferred 'Professor' title and photographs proven fake, blames media pressure for embellishment, and recommends Zinsstag and Good's book on him.

What Hind made of it

Hind sides with the ufologists who disbelieve Adamski, calls some of his photos proven fakes, but allows he may have observed something unknown before embellishing; a kernel of truth may lie in such stories.

Explanation offered
Fraud; media pressure to embellish; faked photographs

In their words

• I also feel that from subsequent reports we have had, perhaps he did observe something 'unknown'.

• there is a kernel of truth but the difficulty is to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Cross references

• UAPs: Miracle of the Unknown (TV programme)
• George Adamski: The Untold Story, Zinsstag and Good, Ceti Publications 1983

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 10 (August 1994), spread 21-22