A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

inch telescope, that were featured in 1950 by Fate magazine, a magazine central to the
propagation of the saucer myth.
In ensuing years Adamski claimed to have had a series of encounters with a beautiful
long-blond-haired Venusian, “Orthon,” an archetypical Nordic type alien, the first of which he
discussed in Flying Saucers Have Landed. Like the spiritual entities encountered by spiritualists
and later by Pelley and the Ballards, Orthon seems very much human, only somehow more
perfect, more advanced.
I fully realized I was in the presence of a man from space - A HUMAN BEING FROM
ANOTHER WORLD! The flesh of his hands to the touch of mine was like a baby’s very
delicate in texture, but firm and warm. His hands were slender, with long tapering
fingers like the beautiful hands of an artistic woman. In fact in different clothing he
could easily have passed for an unusually beautiful woman, yet he was definitely a man.
He was round faced with an extremely high forehead; large, but calm, grey-green
eyes, slightly aslant at the outer corners; with slightly higher cheek bones than an
Occidental, but not so high as an Indian or an Oriental; a finely chiseled nose, not
conspicuously large; and an average size mouth with beautiful white teeth that shone
when he smiled or spoke.
As nearly as I can describe his skin the colouring would be an even, mediumcoloured
Suntan. And it did not look to me as though he had ever had to shave, for there
was no more hair on his face than on a child’s.
His hair was sandy in colour and hung in beautiful waves to his shoulders,
glistening more beautifully than any woman’s I have ever seen. And I remember a
passing thought of how Earth women would enjoy having such beautiful hair as this man
had. 237
Adamski’s description of Orthon (a name which, for clarity’s sake, Adamski
manufactures at a later time—Adamski’s space brothers did not follow the terrestrial convention
of naming) was notable for a number of reasons. The first of these is that while the
extraterrestrials that contacted Adamski condemned racially based divisions and inequalities,
they were all more or less white. While there were some differences in complexion and hair
color, there were no brothers among the space brothers. This was consistent with the racialism
that informed Theosophy and Pelley’s Christian Economics—the occult bedrock of the space
237 237 Desmond Leslie and George Adamski, Flying Saucers have Landed (London: W. Laurie, 1953) 195.
153