George Adamski's iconic flying saucer photo:
Colin Bennett, in LOOKING FOR ORTHON, has a footnote[36] pointing out that writer Christopher Allan [CDA] thought [and thinks?] that noted British astronomer Patrick Moore was the creator/instigator of the Cedric Allingham "Flying Saucer from Mars" affair, which I've addressed here a weeks ago.
The Allingham/Moore "Martian Flying Saucer":
And Christopher, like many of us, is convinced that the UFO photo taken by teenager Stephen Darbishire, February 15th, 1954, was a concocted (hoaxed) photo.
Bennett, however, quotes this from a letter to Timothy Good from Darbishire and provided in Good's BEYOND TOP SECRET:
"When I said that I had seen a UFO I was laughed at, attacked, and surrounded by strange people...in desperation I remember I refuted the statement and said it was a fake...It happened a long time ago, and I do not wish to be drawn into the labyrinth again. Unfortunately the negatives were stolen and all the prints are gone." [Page 199]
The Stephen Darbishire UFO:
I don't wish to debate the authenticity or lack there of Adamski's vast contrivance or tale(s), or whether or not Patrick Moore was Cedric Allingham, or whether young (at the time) Stephen Darbishire's photo was contrived (even getting attention from the Duke of Edinburgh's staff).
Bennett seems to be making the case in his LOOKING FOR ORTHON book that George Adamski's stories were not outright falsehoods but, rather, that Adamski (and maybe Darbishire) were privy to and manipulated by alien mischief-makers or something wishing to create a pseudo-reality, the agenda of which or purpose for remains elusive.
What intrigues me is the use of Adamski's model (or flying saucer photo) as proof of a sighting or event, or as a supplemental element in a hoax.
Did Allingham/Moore and/or Darbishire feel that Adamski's scout ship was authentic?
Did they believe that Adamski, even if making up his elaborate scenario(s), had produced what could be seen as a real, extraterrestrial space ship, even if a model?
What was it about Adamski's scout ship that allowed others, back then and even now, to see a "bona fide" space ship from outer space - one that has all the vicissitudes of a Victorian contraption, something not unlike George Pal's TIME MACHINE?
While Darbishire's photo is amorphous but configured like Adamski's and the Allingham/Moore Martian ship is virtually identical, how is it that both "photographers" were able to approximate the Adamski model/photo?
Making a like-model was surely daunting and difficult in many or some ways.
Why not create a unique ship or make one that looked like those in the Trent/McMinnville photos, which were extant at the time, and had a ring of authenticity about them?
It strikes me as odd that Adamski's hokey saucer was (and still is by some) seen as a prototype for a space ship that came to Earth from places far, far away.
What is it about the Venusian ship, real or not - and it's not real surely -- that still resonates with some who know better or should?
