Like the rehabilitation of some once-discredited victime of the Stalinist purges, George Adamski seems to be coming in from the cold. He is being woven in some ill-defined way, into the increasingly complex fabric of the 'Pennine Mystery' with its strange deaths and abducted policemen. There has always been an element, even in the more conservative circles of ufology who just cannot bring, themselves to dismiss him' totally, and are prepared to leave open a rather desperate option. This book does rather more than that, and calls for a complete rehabilitation of the man's reputation.
The first half, by long time Adamski disciple Lou Zinsstag, is a personal account of her involvement with the Adamski cult and its founder. Veering from total belief and admiration, to doubt, and final acceptance, Miss Zinsstag describes the little world of the cultist. She unwittingly describes her apparent sense of isolation from the real world surrounding her in Zurich; she seems more in touch with other Adamskites in the USA than with her fellow citizens. Even a friendly smile from another theatregoer cannot be accepted as such, and must be built into a fantasy of telepathic communications with ‘aliens amongst us'.
Miss Zinsstag paints a rather touching picture of the world of the UFO (and other) cultists; its camaraderie, its small triumphs, its in-fighting, not so different perhaps from the world of the 'scientific' ufologist.
In the second part of the book Timothy Good tries a scientific rehabilitation. Adamski, in his accounts of his space jaunts, gave many descriptions of 'life' in outer space which have subsequently proved to be spectacularlv wrong, but Tim Good tries to make something out" of these by pointing out a few anomalies in scientific data relating to planets Adamski 'visited'. He does not convince - the possibility of some microscopic life-forms on Mars, or discrepancies in analysis of attnospheric data from Venus hardly add up to evidence for 'Galactic Councils' and so forth!
I suspect that no matter how many times he is debunked, Adamski will always remain an enigma haunting the fringes of 'respectable' ufology. This book helps to explain something of the fascinations he holds for his committed followers. Until the whole Adamski myth is fully examined in its social and historical context by more objective commentators, this book is probably as close as we have got to explaining the attraction Adamski holds for many ufologists: worth reading, but with a critical eye. -- John Rimmer. Magonia 14, 1983.
No comments:
Post a Comment