Electric Razor or Blade? The weather often grows sultry in Atlanta, Georgia, and drives people to do odd things. Spring and early summer of 1953 brought numerous reports of UFOs. Apparently encouraged, on July 7 a pair of young Atlanta barbers shaved a dead rhesus monkey. (Many accounts give an erroneous date of July 8.) … Read more
Mr. Scully, Meet Dr. Gee The everyday citizens of Quito were fooled, but every once in a while, a hard- bitten journalist is as credulous as the general public. In the summer of 1949, author and Variety columnist Frank Scully became the victim of a saucer hoax perpetrated by Leo A. GeBauer and alleged Denver … Read more
Radio and Invasions from Mars Successful hoaxes ride a foundation of plausibility derived from 1) source and 2) nature of presentation. If the presumed source is an authoritative one, and information is relayed straightforwardly and with confidence, people are inclined to suspend their disbelief. In the history of mass media, no event demonstrates this with … Read more
When Wicker Was King Before flying saucers and other UFOs took their places in Western culture, they did not figure in many hoaxes—reasonably enough. That’s not to suggest, however, that the pre-1947 period did not produce any trickery predicated on unidentified flying objects. UFO hoaxes in the United States date to the 1880s, and were … Read more
Hoaxes and Other Mischief Martian Invasions, Shaved Monkeys, and More Tomfoolery To UFOlogists, as well as to persons with casual, essentially sympathetic interest in the UFO phenomenon, UFO hoaxes are dispiriting. A hoax, no matter how clever or objectively amusing, gives confirmation to every doubter, to everyone who has listened to a UFOlogist and raised … Read more
“The Pureland of God” After living as a self-described atheist, Hon-ming Chen, a thirty-eight-year-old sociology professor at Taiwan’s Chai-Nan Junior College of Pharmacy, experienced a religious awakening. Chen was the product of a nonobservant, working-class Buddhist household. He gave no importance to religion until God —taking the form of green, glowing globes—paid him a visit … Read more
The Raëlians When French auto journalist and former singer Claude Vorilhon clambered into the Puy de Lassolas volcano in 1973, he saw a flying saucer that disgorged a friendly, glowing alien. Vorilhon learned that he would shortly hold the secrets of the origins of human life. Further, he had been chosen to be the Earth’s … Read more
Opanova and the Daughters of Ummo It was a happy day in 1960 when a middle-aged Peruvian woman named Juana Pordiavel earned her discharge from a mental hospital. She had become attracted to a younger man, Carlos Opanova, the charismatic leader of a quasi-religious cult he called the Deer of the Sixth Christ. The two … Read more
The Cosmic Masters Press for Peace The Aetherius Society is a seminal New Age religion (registered, with status as a nonprofit) very much in tune with latter-day exemplars that share its interests in yoga, spiritual healing, Mother Earth as life goddess, psychic powers, and karma and reincarnation. However, Aetherius is guided, in large part, by … Read more
Christmas Eve with the Seekers As we’ve seen, a notion shared by apocalyptic, end-of-days cults is the presumed specialness of the cult’s followers. Cult leaders predict that the world will end, but assure followers that divine action or other intercession will ensure continued physical life. Near the end of 1954 a suburban Chicago housewife- turned-prophet … Read more
