by Evelyn Dorio Nicolais

Between seven and eight thousand space fans gathered at Giant Rock Airport, Yucca Valley, California, for the Third Annual Spacecraft Convention on Saturday and Sunday, April 28 and 29, 1956.

The campers began to arrive as early as Friday afternoon, by trailer, car and truck, but most of the crowd turned their cars off the main highway in the early Saturday morning hours and jogged over the sandy spurs that led to the remote airport.

The setting for the convention was typically desert-warm (and warmer by the hour) sunshine, sand dunes mottled by wispy vegetation, a blue sky brushed of very last whiff of clouds. Garden umbrellas, folding chairs and coolie sun hats lent an air of informality.

Shortly after ten o’clock, George Van Tassel, known to everyone as “Van,” opened the two-day session with a brief greeting to those present and to all space friends around our planet. “Space people are still people,” he said, “in spite of their higher culture and evolution. We of earth share much with them, among other things, the same concept of a higher Deity.”

The Reverend Morris Ludwig of Portland, Oregon, set the tone for the convention when, in his invocation, he expressed thanks to God for being part of a group interested in searching for the higher purposes of life. “Help us not to force our opinions on others,” he said, “but only to point the way to right living and understanding.”

First speaker was Mrs. Dana Howard of Palm Springs. A gray-haired, energetic woman with a life-long interest in spiritual experience, Mrs. Howard began: “This is the land of the turtle races! A large percentage of the world’s people live in a shell and, like turtles, are afraid to stick out their necks! We know that we saucer enthusiasts are the laughing stock of the world, but we take it with good grace, knowing that the picture will soon be far different. The flying saucer hysteria is over and the real task has just begun.” Mrs. Howard pointed out that people interested in the space message are not seeking a pot of gold. “We are seeking peace and contentment for the entire world! We are trying to open the avenues of space, to build a bridge across eternity!”

Truman Bethurum, looking quite slender and tanned from a Prescott, Arizona, winter, next took the speaker’s stand. He mentioned the strange policy of the Air Force which, on one hand denies the existence of UFO’s and, on the other hand, spends great sums of money to investigate them. “It will be a great day in America,” said Bethurum, “when our scientists accept space people’s knowledge. Peace must come to our nations before we can have true spacecraft. Peace will depend on the peace-thought of the masses of people.

“When we turn our attention from construction for destruction to construction for production, we may expect to learn the secret of flying saucers.”

It is Mr. Bethurum’s belief that, although the threat of war is kept constantly before the American people, there will not be a nuclear war; that not a single Nike rocket will ever be fired at an enemy in the air; that boys under the teenage group today will never be gun fodder. “Our space friends will lend us a hand to see that we do not destroy ourselves. If the agitators for war were equaled by the agitators for peace – that would be something! We must elect people of intelligence to places of power so that America can become the leader in the ways of peace,” Mr. Bethurum concluded.

Daniel Fry of El Monte, speaking of the relativity of reality, said: “If a person of one hundred years ago were to have spoken of airplanes, television and atomic energy as realities, he would correctly have been considered psychotic, since at that time these things were not realities. They were ridiculous impossibilities. The realities of today are not the realities of yesterday, and they will not be the realities of tomorrow. Let us, therefore, be tolerant of those whose reality includes things beyond our comprehension.”

Speaking on the question of proof, Mr. Fry stated that “there simply is no such thing as absolute and unquestionable proof of anything. The correct definition of the word proof is `evidence of a nature and degree sufficient to bring conviction to the mind’.”

It is Mr. Fry’s opinion that above and beyond the technical knowledge which space people have been trying to give us, their greatest achievement so far is the change in the thought that a third world war was inevitable.

“A year ago,” he said, “it was believed that a nuclear war was inevitable. Now it is the consensus of opinion that nuclear war is unlikely.”

George Van Tassel, the convention’s official host, spoke on the great scientific knowledge which the space people could give us, if we were willing to cooperate with them. This technical data would be new to our scientists and would include knowledge of how to use a free energy principle – the principle utilized by space people in propelling their craft.

“Our money system,” said Mr. Van Tassel, “will not permit this free energy principle to become known. But people must demand to know. Science knows what this principle is and so does the Air Force. The truth about flying saucers is being hidden from the public because it will demand to know about the power used by space people. Everything in the universe is powered by primary energy. Disks generate their own field. They depend on our gravity and on a magnetic field generated by the planets and called secondary energy. Electricity is a third effect. Atomic energy is a combination of all these forces and is a destructive force. One of our big problems is that of converting our money system to a non-money system.”

In speaking of the size of space ships, Mr. Van Tassel said that one carrier craft alone can carry 25,000,000 people. As many as 38,000 ships fit in one mother carrier which is itself fourteen to sixteen miles long. “Space people have been building ships for thousands of years. They are the original colonizers – the Adamic race of man – of our planet. There are space people who never live on a planet. They have learned to use natural forces to supply their every need, and their methods and results seem to us nothing short of miracles. They know no disease, can grow gardens in space, have more “time” than anything else.

“There is a Space Confederation of fifty-two solar systems and 601 planets,” according to Mr. Van Tassel. “Space people say that everywhere they have traveled, they have found people and more people.”

Orfeo Angelucci of Glendale opened his talk with an expression of thanks for the encouraging growth of this year’s convention over last year’s. “Space is a brand new frontier,” he said, “and progress is being made on all fronts. Today the whole world has its thoughts in the stars. Russia, France and England are keeping pace with us on the space front. Our own science is rolling up its sleeves for full speed ahead.”

Mr. Angelucci said that we must spread the space beings’ message to all people through whatever channels we can reach them. “We can show the world that from nothing, we have materialized something. There is not a human being that could believe in flying saucers and at the same time believe in things that are destructive. Errors are the unreal things in life. Delinquency is the work of warped minds. Our literature deals with the unrealities of life. We need new concepts for living.”

“The big question is,” according to Mr. Angelucci, “are we really prepared to meet space people? If the world will accept the fact, publicly and officially, that space beings are in our skies, within a year we should be on the scientific road to the cure of all disease; we would be on the way to making a Utopia out of our planet, and within three years, we could have space visitors dining at our tables – all this merely by announcing that we have space visitors in our skies.” It was this speaker’s belief that the world is not yet ready to accept the full landing of space people. “But our acceptance of them is the sure road to evolvement. The picture is developing gradually – metaphysically, spiritually and materially. Soon we will be in the great geophysical year and we will see our friends in action again.”

In concluding, Mr. Angelucci said, “We cannot kill life nor make it; we can only manifest it. We have the choice now of destroying our earth or of entering, with space people’s help, into the infiniteness of the universe. But the world is beginning to waken. An undertow and undercurrent are building up. There is a promise for all of us.”

Another speaker who mentioned the big advancement of space activity during the past year was young Dick Miller, recently from Detroit, who now makes his home in Hollywood. His work with space people has been largely through radio contact and tape recordings. “People have become a little more conscious of the flying saucer story,” he said, “and are willing to listen to what they would have ridiculed a year ago. Several radio stations have inquired about the tape recordings made by our group and are considering playing them over the air. This would be a tremendous step forward! I feel that I am fortunate in having come to know space people. Much of the information given to our group has to do with scientific techniques and with instruments to be constructed for the benefit of earth people. But space people also give us information about their own society and of their plans to assist us in reaching up for greater knowledge.”

Frank Scully, “Dean of Saucer Writers,” took the speaker’s stand next. This early saucerian, a handsome, silvery-haired gentleman wearing a bright red shirt, has a commanding presence.

“Knowing the truth about saucers is like being too far ahead of a parade — nobody sees you or knows you are there. If you’re ahead in this world, you’re out of step with the parade. So it is with the flying saucer information.”

It was Mr. Scully’s belief that radio and television are more open to new ideas because they are new agencies. “Print is close to six hundred years old. An encircling movement of radio and television has begun and these media will bring the saucer story fearlessly to the people. The ears of the human race are in better condition than their eyes,” he concluded. “Compare the number of people who wear glasses with the number who use hearing aids!”

Charles Laughead, member of Williamson’s Telonic Research Staff in Prescott, Arizona, brought to the convention the greetings of that group. “We are entering a period of great geologic changes,” said Dr. Laughead.

“There will be many disturbances in nature, and the face of our earth will be changed. Europe will go down, so will Asia, and our own shores will suffer great devastation. Lemuria and Atlantis will rise again. There will be new migrations of earth people, and new continents will take form. Out of the turmoil, a new and fabulous civilization will rise.”

Dr. Laughead pointed out that we are entering a new phase in metaphysical work, too. “The mystery schools, long the repositories of eternal truths, will now come out in the open to disseminate their ancient wisdom. This is a time of bringing together the groups who will forge the New Age. We are moving into a new time scale. Now is the time of graduation and initiation for those who have completed the classroom work on earth. It is hard to realize that the Kingdom is here and that we are the people of the Kingdom!”

The drawing card for Saturday evening’s program was a forty-minute technicolor film, “WE’VE SEEN THE SAUCERS,” produced by Andrew Vail, a Southern California saucer enthusiast. The film has had but three other showings and is not for general theater distribution. It is a documented record of saucer sightings as related by two San Fernando housewives, a minister, an airplane pilot, a radar operator, a business executive and a movie actress. Comments by three military personnel are also included.

During the convention, “regrets” were read from George Adamski, Donald Keyhoe, Edward J. Ruppelt and Frank Edwards.

Mr. Carl Anderson, an employee of the Long Beach Naval Shipyards, related for the first time (on this platform) a saucer sighting and subsequent experience in the desert about a year and a half ago. His story was corroborated by his wife Stella and their daughter Betty Ann. This was followed by a questions and answer period.

A program of entertainment, under the direction of Miss Joann Norstrom of El Monte, included dances and vocal solos, in addition to several accordion numbers by her “Rhythm Squeezers” band.

Late Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Bessie Arthur of Los Angeles made the concluding brief remarks, and the Third Annual Spacecraft Convention was closed with the extension of God’s blessing to all people of the earth.

Excerpt from Understanding Magazine – Vol. 2, No. 5 – May 1956