George Adamski (April 17, 1891 – April 23, 1965) was a Polish-born American citizen who became widely known in ufology circles, and to some degree in popular culture, after he claimed to have photographed ships from other planets, met with friendly Nordic alien "Space Brothers", and to have taken flights with them. The first of the so-called contactees of the 1950s, he was a "philosopher, teacher, student and saucer researcher", though his claims were met with skepticism.^[2]

Adamski had written a best selling book titled Flying Saucers Have Landed detailing his experiences, co-written with Desmond Leslie.^[3]

Early years[link]

Adamski was born on April 17, 1891, in Poland.^[4] At the age of two, he and his family emigrated to America and settled in New York City.^[4] From 1913 to 1916, beginning at the age of 22,^[5] he was a soldier in the 13th U.S. Cavalry Regiment K-Troop fighting at the Mexican border during the Pancho Villa Expedition.^[4] In 1917, he married.^[5] Adamski then moved west, doing maintenance work in Yellowstone National Park and working in an Oregon flour mill.^[4] While in Laguna Beach, Adamski founded the "Royal Order of Tibet," which held its meetings in the "Temple of Scientific Philosophy."^[5] In 1940, Adamski and some close friends of his moved to a ranch near California's Palomar Mountain, where they dedicated their time to studying and farming.^[5] In 1944, with funding from Mrs. 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 called Palomar Garden and a new restaurant called Palomar Gardens Cafe.^[2][4][5]

Ufology[link]

On October 9, 1946, during a meteor shower, Adamski and some friends claimed that while they were at the Palomar Gardens campground, they witnessed a large cigar-shaped "mother ship."^[4] In 1947, Adamski took a photograph of what he claimed was the 1946 cigar-shaped "mother ship" crossing in front of the moon over Palomar Gardens.^[4]

On May 29, 1950, Adamski took a photograph of what he alleged to be six unidentified objects in the sky, which appeared to be flying in formation.^[4] Adamski's May 29, 1950, UFO photograph was depicted in an August 1978 commemorative stamp issued by the island nation of Grenada in order to mark the "Year of UFOs."^[4][6]

On November 20, 1952, Adamski and several friends were in the Colorado Desert near the town of Desert Center, California, when they purportedly saw a large submarine-shaped object hovering in the sky. Believing that the ship was looking for him, Adamski is said to have left his friends and to have headed away from the main road. Shortly afterwards, according to Adamski's accounts, a scout ship made of a type of translucent metal landed close to him, and its pilot, a Venusian called Orthon[1],^[7] disembarked and sought him out.^[8]

Adamski described Orthon as being a medium-height humanoid with long blond hair and tanned skin wearing reddish-brown shoes, though, as Adamski added, "his trousers were not like mine."^[1][4][8][9] Adamski said Orthon communicated with him via telepathy and through hand signals.^[1][8][9] During their conversation, Orthon is said to have warned of the dangers of nuclear war and to have arranged for Adamski to be taken on a trip to see the solar system, including the planet Venus, the location where Mrs. Adamski had been reincarnated.^[4][8] Adamski said that Orthon had refused to allow himself to be photographed and instead asked Adamski to provide him with a blank photographic plate, which Adamski says that he gave him.^[4] When Orthon left, Adamski said that he and George Hunt Williamson were able to take plaster casts of Orthon's footprints, which contained mysterious symbols.^[10]

Orthon is said to have returned the plate to Adamski on December 13, 1952, at which point it was found to contain new strange symbols.^[4][11] It was during this meeting that Adamski is said to have taken a now famous UFO photograph using his 6-inch (150 mm) telescope.^[11]

In 1954, Desmond Leslie is said to have witnessed several UFOs with Adamski while visiting him in California. He described one of them in a letter he sent to his wife while he was in San Diego:^[12]

In 1957 Adamski was the recipient of a letter signed "R.E. Straith," alleged representative of the "Cultural Exchange Committee" of the U.S. State Department. Straith wrote that the U.S. Government knew that Adamski had actually spoken to extraterrestrials in a California desert in 1952, and that a group of highly placed government officials planned on public corroboration of Adamski's story. Adamski was proud of this endorsement and exhibited it to support his claims (Moseley & Pflock 2002:124–27, 180).

In May 1959, Adamski received a letter from the head of the Dutch Unidentified Flying Objects Society informing him that she had been contacted by officials at the palace of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and "that the Queen would like to receive you."^[2] Adamski informed a London newspaper about the invitation, which prompted the court and cabinet to request that the queen cancel her meeting with Adamski, but the queen went ahead with the meeting, saying, "A hostess cannot slam the door in the face of her guests."^[2] After the meeting, Dutch Aeronautical Association president Cornelis Kolff said, "The Queen showed an extraordinary interest in the whole subject."^[2] Wire services such as United Press International and Reuters sent the story out, and newspapers around the world ran it. On May 19, 1959, The Straits Times ran the story.^[13] The Sydney Morning Herald ran it on May 20, 1959, along with an image titled "The 'Moon Man.'"^[14] On May 21, 1959, the Rockford Register ran the article,^[15] and the Los Angeles Times ran it on May 27, 1959.^[16]

Adamski believed that the photographs of the far side of the moon that were taken by the Soviet lunar probe Luna 3 in 1959 were altered to depict a barren, lifeless surface when in fact there were cities, trees, and snow-capped mountains there instead.^[17]

Later life and death[link]

In 1962, Mr Adamski announced that he would be attending an interplanetary conference held on the planet Saturn.^[4] In 1963, Mr Adamski claimed that he had had a secret meeting with Pope John XXIII and that he had received a "Golden Medal of Honor" from the Pope.^[17][18] Adamski, at the request of the extraterrestrials he was allegedly in contact with, met with the Pope in order to request a "final agreement" from him because of his decision not to communicate directly with any extraterrestrials, and also to offer him a liquid substance in order to save him from the gastric enteritis that he suffered from, which would later become acute peritonitis.^[19]

On April 23, 1965, at the age of 74, Adamski died of a heart attack in Maryland.^[4]

Criticism[link]

The most common arguments contrary to Adamski's claims forwarded by skeptics in the 1950's is that living on the planet Venus was technologically impossible considering earth's technological advancement (in the 1950's), owing to its environmental conditions. These conditions include an atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface which is 92 times that of Earth (comparable to a few meters under water), clouds composed of a substance thought to be sulfuric acid, and an average surface temperature of 461.85 °C. It follows that, no human from earth could live on the surface of the planet without a highly developed technology (such as the modern Antarctic bases, underwater submarine docks and the planned moon bases and space stations developed by NASA in the 21st century), and as a result most considered Mr Adamski's claims to be a technological impossibility for the 1950's. It should be noted however, that the alleged Venusian visitors stated they lived in underground cities, thus not being exposed to hostile conditions on the surface. Also, his claims inspired a British citizen who went under the name Cedric Allingham.

Inside The Space Ships is considered by some^[20] to be a "remake" of a science fiction book, ghost written by Lucy McGinnis, entitled Pioneers of Space that Mr Adamski strongly denies writing. His often-published photo of a flying saucer from 1952 has been identified (by the chairman of the British UFO organization in the 1970s) as the top of an Italian-made ice machine used in his café^{[citation needed]}(it is worth noting that the this machine was made after the pictures were released, thus disproving the claim)), a streetlight (see above), and the top of a chicken brooder.^[21] However, "Cecil B. de Mille's top trick photographer, Pev Marley, declared that if Adamski's pictures were fakes, they were the best he had ever seen, while in England 14 experts from the J. Arthur Rank company concluded that the object photographed was either real or a full-scale model."^[22]

Books[link]

• Cosmic Philosophy (1961), self-published (reprinted 1972, Pine Hill Press OCLC 13371492)
• Flying Saucers Farewell (1961), Abelard-Schuman, OCLC 964949 (reprinted 1967 as [The Strange People, Powers, Events] Behind the Flying Saucer Mystery, Warner Paperback Library, OCLC 4020003)
• Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953), British Book Centre, ISBN 978-0-85435-180-0; published simultaneously in the UK by Thomas Werner Laurie (Reprinted various times)
• Flying Saucers Have Landed, revised and enlarged edition (1970), Neville Spearman, UK, ISBN
• Inside the Space Ships (1955), Abelard-Schuman, OCLC 543169 (Reprinted 1967 as Inside the Flying Saucers, Warner Paperback Library, OCLC 1747128) Currently in print from the George Adamski Foundation
• Pioneers of Space: a Trip to the Moon, Mars and Venus (1949), Leonard-Freefield, OCLC 4722893 (Reprinted 2008, Inner Light/Global Communications)
• Wisdom of the Masters of the Far East (1936), Royal Order of Tibet (reprinted 1974, 2000, Health Research)

Other publications[link]

• "Many mansions" (1955), SS&S Publications, OCLC 45443779
• "Petals of life: poems" (1937), OCLC 47304946
• "Telenews" (1960-03-28), OCLC 79040262
• "Telepathy: the Cosmic or Universal Language" (1958), s.n., OCLC 45443839
• "Science of Life Study Course" (1964), self-published

George Adamski in popular culture[link]

Literature

• Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke referred to ufologists as suffering from Adamski's disease in his novel 3001: The Final Odyssey.

Music

• British House musician Adamski, real name Adam Tinley, adopted the UFO enthusiast's surname as his stagename. Tinley is most notable for his 1990 hit single Killer, which featured the vocals of the then-undiscovered singer Seal, and spent 4 weeks at number 1 in the United Kingdom.

Roleplaying games

• Hunter: the Vigil's Task Force VALKYRIE includes a subgroup called Operation ADAMSKI, explicitly named after George Adamski, dedicated to producing and distributing misinformation about aliens and other "extra-normal entities" in order to hide the existence of such beings.

Video games

• In the video game, Mega Man 9, there is a UFO-based enemy named Adamski. This is probably a reference to George Adamski.
• In the game Disgaea in the optional "Prinny Commentary Mode" the commentator makes reference to Adamski UFO's.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Bennett, Colin (2008). Looking For Orthon: The Story of George Adamski, The First Flying Saucer Contactee, and How He Changed The World. Cosimo Books. ISBN 1-60520-067-0. 

• Aartsen, Gerard (July 2010). George Adamski — A herald for the Space Brothers. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Biblioteca-GA Publications. pp. xii + 146. ISBN 978-90-815495-1-6. http://www.createspace.com/3449744. 

• Battaglia, Debbora; David Samuels, Christopher F. Roth, and Mizuko Ito (2005). E.T. Culture: Anthropology in Outerspaces. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-3621-1. 

• Brunt, Tony (May 2009). "Secret History, Part 3: George Adamski and the Toughest Job in the World". UFOCUS NZ. http://www.ufocusnz.org.nz/secret_history_3.html. Retrieved 2009-08-15. 

• Lewis, Judith (April 5, 2000). "Get a Piece of the Rock". LA Weekly. http://www.laweekly.com/general/travel/get-a-piece-of-the-rock/11493/. Retrieved 2007-05-05. 

• Creme, Benjamin (June 2010). The Gathering of the Forces of Light — UFOs and Their Spiritual Mission. Los Angeles, London, Amsterdam: Share International Foundation. pp. 240. ISBN 978-90-71484-46-9. http://www.share-international.org/background/printed/books.htm. 

• Dohan, Henry (2008). The Pawn of His Creator — Early Contactees of Interplanetary Visitations. David R Kammerer. pp. 278. ISBN 978-1-4382-2477-0. http://www.createspace.com/3343353. 

• Gulyas, AJ (November/December 2005). "Meaningful Contact: George Adamski and the Contactees as Social Reformers". UFO Review (No.13). 

• Moseley, James W.; Pflock, Karl T. (2002), Shockingly Close to the Truth!: Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist, Prometheus Books, ISBN 1-57392-991-3 

• Walker, Cheryl (August 13, 2005). "Web site documents mountain's history". Sign On San Diego. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20050813-9999-m1m13tfpal.html. Retrieved 2007-04-27. 

• Yockel, Michael (April 11, 2001). 4039 "They Came from Out of the Sky". New York Press (Volume 14, Issue 15). http://www.nypress.com/print.cfm?content_id= 4039. Retrieved 2007-04-27. ^{[dead link]}

• Zinsstag, Lou; Timothy Good (1983). George Adamski — The Untold Story. Beckenham, Kent, UK: CETI Publications. pp. 208. ISBN 0-9508414-0-4. 

• Zinsstag, Lou; Timothy Good (1990). UFO ... George Adamski — Their Man on Earth. Tucson, Arizona: UFO Photo Archives. pp. 208. ISBN 0-934269-21-1. 

External links[link]

• Official website
• George Adamski biography
• Hallet, Marc, "Why I Can Say That Adamski Was A Liar", 2005
• Overview of the early 1950s "Contactees," including Adamski
• Coker, Rory, "Profiles in Pseudoscience: George Adamski!(brief outline of Adamski's life and claims; 2005)
• Newscaster Frank Edwards on Adamski
• Straith letter
• Contactees I Have Known, by Long John Nebel, as told to Lloyd Malian
• Past Masters — Way Up In the Middle of the Air
• UFO Recording — 8 mm film by a United States government official named Madeline Rotterfor in the presence of Adamski and several witnesses, at Silver Spring, Maryland, on February 28, 1965.

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This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (November 2008)

Adamski (born Adam Paul Tinley, 4 December 1967, in Lymington, Hampshire, England) is an English dance music producer, prominent at the time of acid house for his tracks "N-R-G" and "Killer" (a collaboration with Seal).

Career[link]

Tinley performed with his brother Mark Tinley, and Johnny Slut of the band Specimen, as Diskord Datkord. The band was signed to SOHO records and released one single. The brothers Tinley continued to work together even after the demise of Diskord Datkord. In the late 1980s, Adam Tinley adopted his stage name after the UFO enthusiast, George Adamski.

Adamski was discovered by entrepreneur Phil Smith who ran the 'Le Petit Prince' restaurant in London. He introduced Adamski's music to the 'rave scene' and got him a deal with MCA Records, producing the first rave record on MCA called Liveandirect. The artist enjoyed modest success with this first release, which was a collection of tracks recorded live at various venues in England and Ibiza. It contained a short, live version of his first single, "NRG", as well as "I Dream of You", which appeared on a free 4 track 7" vinyl single given away with the music paper, Record Mirror in 1989. The cover of the single "NRG" featured a mocked up Lucozade bottle with the 'Lucozade' word replaced with 'N-R-G'.

Commenting on the comparisons between rave culture and the earlier punk rock scene, Adamski said in 1990, "I liked the energy and the visual side of punk, but it was all just saying 'no, no, no, no,' whereas now everybody's saying 'yes, yes, yes.' I much prefer the positivity thing we have now, plus it's a much easier environment to score in."^[2]

Adamski toured many clubs with his portable keyboard set up, playing long sets, with an MC, Daddy Chester, and later with Seal. In front of his keyboard was a UK car number plate with the words 'ADAMSKI' on it. Early versions of future singles "Killer" and "Future Love Paradise" were played on some of the Seal dates. One date of particular note was at Cambridge Corn Exchange, in early 1990, when Seal leapt on to a smaller, lower catwalk stage, the coins in his pockets all spilled out, showering some of the front row with cash causing a fight.^{[citation needed]}

Adamski played live at the opening party of Amnesia nightclub in Ibiza in 1989, with Ricardo Da Force MCing who later joined The KLF. Adamski continued to play at this club on and off throughout that summer including the closing party in Ooctober.

Adamski met Seal at the London nightclub, Solaris, and together they recorded "Killer". It crossed over into the mainstream music charts, becoming a worldwide hit. It is featured on the album Doctor Adamski's Musical Pharmacy which also contained the follow-up singles "The Space Jungle" and "Flashback Jack".

Adamski's third album was Naughty. It featured a collaboration with Nina Hagen on "Get Your Body!" and plenty of club tunes, expanding from the artist's acid house roots into the pop and rock genres. The cover art featured Tinley with his head shaven bare, hugging an umbrella. Commercially, this album was not a big success.

Adamski's next album was issued in late 1998 on the ZTT Records label. Its title was Adamski's Thing and the style followed the trend started with Naughty, with guitars, strings, raw vocals and introspective lyrics, but maintaining a rhythmic dance sensibility.^{[citation needed]} The album spawned two singles, "Intravenous Venus" and "One Of the People".

In 2000, Tinley released his last single as Adamski Products Inc., "In the City." The song charted in Italy, but did little business elsewhere. In the early 2000s, Tinley decided to assume a new identity: For a while, he began to produce music as Adam Sky.^[3] As Adam Sky, his songs included collaborations with the musician Danny Williams. In 2007, he released a remake of The Pop Group's 1979 single "We Are All Prostitutes" with Mark Stewart which appeared on a number of compilations.

He currently lives in Berlin, Germany with his daughter, Bluebell Williams Tinley. Adamski has set up his own label (Prostitute Records). His single "ApeX" was released on Kitsuné Music in 2006. Recently, Adamski/Sky has been working closely with VJ Ladypat, and the London based rapper, Niyi. In 2009, Adamski began to release more material on Shir Khan's Exploited record label.^[4] Simultaneously, the label 'Do It Yourself Italy' released singles by "Adamski Products Inc".

Adamski released a new version of "Killer" on Rob Roar's Phonetic label in 2011. He is working on a project entitled Neo Waltz, under the guise of Adam Sky.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• Liveandirect (1989)
• Doctor Adamski's Musical Pharmacy (1990) - UK #8^[5]
• Naughty (1992)
• Adamski's Thing (1998)
• Killer - The Best of Adamski (1999)
• Mutant Pop (2000)

Singles[link]

• "N-R-G" - #12 UK
• "Killer" (featuring Seal) - #1 UK, #5 World
• "The Space Jungle" - #7 UK
• "Flashback Jack" - #46 UK
• "Sunday Roast"
• "Never Goin' Down" (duet with Jimi Polo) / "Born To Be Alive" (duet with Soho) - #51 UK
• "Get Your Body" (duet with Nina Hagen) - #68 UK
• "Back To Front" - #63 UK
• "One Of The People" (billed as Adamski's Thing) - #56
• "In the City"
• "Already Out There" #4 Italy^[5]

As Adam Sky

• "Larynx" (feat Shafiqe)
• "Hope Fiendz ep"
• "Apex"
• "Galactic Lover" (with the World Domination)
• "We are Prostitutes" (feat. Mark Stewart)
• "Babydoll"
• "The Imperious Urge" (feat. Danny Williams)
• "Circle Jerk" (with Zoo Brazil)

Remixes[link]

• Miss Kittin & The Hacker - "Stock Exchange" (2003)
• Mignon - ("Demons of Love") (2004)

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Adamski biography at Allmusic
• Discography at Discogs.com
• Website on archive.
• Adam Sky's MySpace page
• ZTT Records official site
• ZTT Records official store
• Ian Peel: Warriors of pop, 21 years of ZTT Record Collector, September 2004 (copy at Zang Tuum Tumb and all that) Article about ZTT's history, contains info on Adamski
• Interviewed in Kool Magazine [1]