George Adamski
| George Adamski | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
April 17, 1891 Bromberg, German Empire (now Bydgoszcz, Poland) |
| Died | April 23, 1965 (aged 74) Maryland, United States |
| Resting place | Arlington National Cemetery |
| Occupation | Self-described "wandering teacher",ufologist |
| Organization | Royal Order of Tibet George Adamski Foundation |
| Known for | Contactee |
George Adamski (April 17, 1891—April 23, 1965) was a Polish American citizen who became widely known in ufology circles, and to some degree in popular culture, after he claimed to have photographed spaceships from other planets, met with friendly Nordic alien Space Brothers, and to have taken flights with them to the Moon and other planets. He was the first, and most famous, of the so-called contactees of the 1950s. Adamski called himself a "philosopher, teacher, student and saucer researcher," although most investigators concluded his claims were an elaborate hoax, and that Adamski himself was a con artist.
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.
Adamski was born on April 17, 1891, in Bromberg (Bydgoszcz, Poland) in the German Empire. His family was ethnically Polish. At the age of two, he and his family emigrated to America and settled in New York City. From 1913 to 1916, beginning at the age of 22, he was a soldier in the 13th U.S. Cavalry Regiment (K Troop) fighting at the Mexican border during the Pancho Villa Expedition. In 1917 he married Mary Shimbersky. She died in 1954; they had no children. Following his marriage Adamski moved west, doing maintenance work in Yellowstone National Park and working in an Oregon flour mill and a California concrete factory. By 1930 "Adamski was a minor figure on the California occult scene", teaching his personal mixture of Christianity and Eastern religions, which he called "Universal Progressive Christianity" and "Universal Law". In the early 1930s, while living in Laguna Beach, Adamski founded the "Royal Order of Tibet," which held its meetings in the "Temple of Scientific Philosophy." Adamski served as a "philosopher" and teacher at the temple. The "Royal Order of Tibet" was given a government license to make wine for "religious purposes" during Prohibition; Adamski was quoted as saying "I made enough wine for all of Southern California ... I was making a fortune!" However, the end of Prohibition also marked the decline of his profitable wine-making business, and Adamski later told two friends that's when he "had to get into this [flying] saucer crap." In 1940 Adamski, his wife, and some close friends moved to a ranch near California's Palomar Mountain, where they dedicated their time to studying religion, philosophy, and farming. In 1944, with funding from Alice K. Wells, a student of Adamski, they purchased 20 acres (8.1 ha) of land on Palomar Mountain, where they built a new home, a campground called Palomar Gardens, and a small restaurant called Palomar Gardens Cafe. Although he was frequently called "Professor" Adamski by his admirers and followers, he held no graduate or undergraduate degree from any accredited college or university, and in fact had only a grade school education.
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