Big Bo and Little Buck
Missouri farmer and contactee Buck Nelson was slender and rough-hewn, with an angular face and a strong jaw. Invariably dressed in coveralls, he owned and operated eighty acres in the Ozarks. Fifty-nine when he gained notoriety in 1954, Nelson had experienced a hardworking, peripatetic life: railroad worker, cowboy, security guard, and sawmill operator. A native of Colorado, Nelson managed just a sixth-grade education. Regardless, he was enterprising, astute, and well liked. He recounted his adventures in a 1956 pamphlet, My Trip to Mars, the Moon, and Venus.
When Nelson saw a UFO for the first time, he saw three of them, during the afternoon of July 30, 1954. Geographically isolated, Melson had not heard of flying saucers, so he later described the craft as “things.” The size of the principal craft impressed him; he later estimated it to be fifty feet in diameter and about eight feet high. (In some accounts, Nelson says that two other ships hovered behind the principal one.) Later, he supposed that the ship was powered by some fabulous manipulation of “magnetic currents.” When he waved a lighted flashlight in greeting, a mysterious (but harmless) ray knocked him to the ground. The craft left, and when Nelson regained his feet, his bothersome back no longer pained him. The ray had provided a cure.
When the aliens returned to Nelson on February 1, 1955, they spoke to him from within the hovering craft, and promised to return. They did, on March 5, 1955. This time, creatures emerged from the craft: a “385”-pound dog named Big Bo; a young Earthling called “Little Buck” (who teaches English on Venus); and two extraterrestrials: an unnamed trainee (who appeared elderly) and a younger man who identified himself as Bob Solomon. Solomon said he was two hundred years old. Inside the farmhouse, Nelson satisfied his visitors’ curiosity by demonstrating his oil stove and explaining various pieces of furniture.
The visits continued deep into the spring of 1955. Twelve rocks the aliens had arranged on the ground, Nelson learned, represented the Twelve Laws of God.
These directives mimicked the tone and many specifics of the Ten Commandments. This exchange of morality occurred during the aliens’ fifth visit with Nelson, at midnight on April 24, 1955. That same day, in the wee hours of the morning, the aliens invited Nelson into the ship.
Nelson recalled the controls as models of simplicity. With the barest assistance from the visitors, he was able to elevate the craft and take it into space. “After I got the ship high into space I was told I could play with the controls.” Nelson flew upside down and rocked the ship from side to side. Big Bo, the alien dog, enjoyed all the tomfoolery.
Cruising above Mars, Nelson observed the canals, and horses and cattle, too. The group visited “the ruler’s home,” and then took off for Earth’s Moon. Lunch was served in a ruler’s home on the illuminated side of the Moon. Nelson studied the landscape and surmised that snow atop Moon mountains provided the residents with water.
Back to the ship, and then more lunch, this time on the Moon’s dark side. Nelson seems to have been feeling overstuffed by this time, but he remained genial and awestruck.
Two stops on Venus followed. Nelson visited the homes of two more rulers; mercifully, he did not have to eat again. He was impressed by Venusian cars, which hovered above the ground in lieu of wheels or fenders. A Venusian wall clock had seventeen “scratchings” instead of numbers, and a thirty-four-hour Venusian day-night cycle split evenly, seventeen/seventeen.
Two facts shared with Nelson are particularly startling: of the planets in our solar system, Earth is the only one not actively traveling through space; and numerous American government officials had visited Venus. Nelson speculated that those officials said nothing because of fear for their reputations.
In an inadvertent anticipation of New Age thought, Nelson described the Venusians as healthy people (“much better looking in general” than we) who favored fruits and vegetables. Venus had no doctors, as the people were well versed in self-healing and natural cures. Wars and crime are unknown on Venus.
Although users of advanced technology, the Venusians kept no munitions. Buck Nelson’s first trip through space consumed three memorable days. Buck’s pamphlet is sprinkled with Nelson’s simple freehand drawings of Venusian architecture, the ship’s fuselage and control panel, and other light technology.
Three months after Nelson’s adventure, on July 26, 1955, he described his experiences to a “saucer club” in Detroit. In Chicago not long after, he answered scientists’ questions: “One astronomer drove from the west coast and asked me what it looked like in outer space. I told him that it was inky black. He thanked me, bid me goodbye and left.” In a greeting recorded at Nelson’s farm on Christmas Day 1955, Little Buck urged Earth to give up its atomic weapons.
In the back of the booklet, Nelson provided a simple how-to drawing of a “saucer detector,” a piece of magnetized metal suspended horizontally from a ceiling in a draft-free area of the user’s house. “If there is a Space Craft over the house, the magnetic bar will be drawn upward. If the Space Craft circles the house, the bar will move in a circle.” Nelson’s experiences brought minor fame sufficient for him to inaugurate an annual “Spacecraft Convention” at his farm in the late 1950s. (Locations varied in subsequent years.) These conventions were real Americana, patronized mainly by middle-aged and elderly day trippers. A few young families arrived with simple tents, for camping.
The settings were rustic and dusty. You could buy a Coke from a vendor in a weathered outbuilding, enjoy a carnival ride, and purchase books, photos, and pamphlets from a variety of UFO enthusiast- dealers. Buck, growing white haired and more leathery with each passing year, was around to chat, and maybe sell you a bit of fur from the giant space dog.
Nelson negotiated the lecture circuit, and conducted a modest mail-order business selling tape recordings of lectures, space music, and gospel tunes. The tapes, plus the buck-fifty convention admissions, brought in a few dollars, but bad news came in 1960, when Nelson announced that he had lost his disability pension because he had ridden in a spaceship. To address that, and to spread the word about the “Space Brothers,” Nelson urged contributors to fund a radio station.
In her foreword to My Trip to Mars, the Moon, and Venus, a Missouri homemaker and dressmaker named Fanny Lowery compared Nelson favorably to John the Baptist: “a great teacher.” Nelson passed away in 1984, but because of attention paid him years later by graphic novelist Tim Lane, and the print-on- demand availability of his booklet, Nelson’s modest notoriety continues.