UFO Iconography - Letterheads

Besides the collections of books, magazines, photos, correspondence etc. at AFU, we have many documents and items that could be catalogued under the heading UFO iconography: paintings, posters, toys, figurines, t-shirts, stickers, business and membership cards, letterheads etc. When reviewing and organizing various files at AFU I have made it a habit of scanning some of this iconography as it presents a fascinating view of how the image of UFOs and aliens has changed during the decades. As I have scanned thousand of old letters, here are a few letterheads from ufologists and organizations worldwide, mainly from the 1950s and 60s.

One of my favourites is this letterhead from the New York Saucer Information Bureau. They published the magazine UFO-mation in 1958-1959. Co-editor and secretary was C. Lois Jessop, who told of a scary encounter with unknown giants in the Hal Saflini caves in Malta in the mid- 1930s. Her article, Malta, Entrance to the Cavern World, was published in Round Robin, The Journal of Borderland Research, vol 17, no 2, March 1961.

Knut Aasheim was a Norwegian ufologist and contactee. He was the author of Stjernefolket blandt oss – de frivillige og deres misjon 1995, (The Star People Among Us – the Volonteers and Their Mission). Aasheim also lectured for the House of Lords UFO-Group in London 1983. For a few years he headed a group called Interplanetary Cooperation Association – INCA.

Knut Aasheim during a visit to my home at Södertälje, July 29, 1972

Wellknown to the old guard ufologists is this letterhead from Gray Barker. He published The Saucerian, later Saucerian Bulletin between 1953-1962.

This beautiful letterhead was used by British ufologist Brinsley Le Poer Trench in a letter to Edith Nicolaisen, Sweden, November 11, 1960. There is s small mistake in the image of the golden scout craft. The portholes should have been in rows of four.

Brinsley Le Poer Trench

The letterhead from the Italian contactee Eugenio Siragusa 1964 solved the porthole issue by simply not drawing any portholes at all.

The Japanese group Cosmic Brotherhood Association was contactee oriented but chose to have a more neutral letterhead as this one from 1964.

Daniel Fry´s organization Understanding also used a rather neutral but symbolic letterhead. This from 1960, before they moved the headquarters to Merlin, Oregon.

Daniel Fry in Sweden 1970

An imaginative drawing was used as letterhead by the magazine the Hollow Hassle, published by editor Mary LeVesque (Davis) 1973-1986. She headed the organization Hollow Earth Research Association.

This is the letterhead used by one of the oldest UFO groups in Sweden, Malmö interplanetariska sällskap (MIS). They were founded already in 1958 and are still active and members of UFO-Sweden. Director during many years has been Ebbe Johansson, still going strong.

Ebbe Johansson, March 6, 2010

Finally the letterhead I used as chairman of Södertälje UFO-Center, a group I founded in 1970 together with my late friend and AFU colleague Kjell Jonsson.

Edith Nicolaisen and Doomsday Prophecies

A nuclear war will cause the end of the world on April 23, 1990. This was announced in many newspapers around the globe at the time. Behind this prophecy was Elisabeth Clare Prophet or Guru Ma, head of the Church Universal and Triumphant. Members of this New Age church had built a gigantic bunker in Montana, USA, waiting for doomsday. There were doctors, nurses, pilots, technicians, cooks, even a dentist from Finland. They had quit their jobs and sold everything. Millions of dollars were invested in this bunker. When doomsday didn´t arrive many lives were shattered. Twenty years later Elisabeth´s daughter, Erin Prophet, wrote a revealing biography of her life in this group, Prophet´s Daughter, published in 2009.

Part of article about Elisabeth Clare Prophet from Swedish daily Expressen, March 31, 1990

Apocalyptic doomsday prophecies are often reported, coming mainly from fundamentalist or New Age cults, and since the 1950s also from various UFO contactees. As I am presently organizing and reviewing the Parthenon archive at AFU I have found many documents and letters giving the inside view of how deeply affected Edith Nicolaisen, founder of Parthenon, was by doomsday prophecies and ideas. In fact it appears to have been one of her main motivations for the incessant activity and hard work for more than thirty years. This may come as a surprise for many who have regarded Edith as basically a UFO and New Age book publisher. Personally I have been of the opinion that her adherence and interest in prophecies began during the later years but as this letter reveal doomsday ideas was an important part of her worldview already from the start:

”Should you wish further information about the Flying Saucers and interplanetary relations och ´The Disaster worse than the H-Bomb´, prophesied already in 1883 by Madame Blavatsky, and today scientifically proven with the help of gyroscopics and mathematical calculations I will gladly come to Malmö one evening, speaking with you and others interested. It is a matter of life and death involving 4/5 of humanity in our century. Everyone becoming aware of this has no choice but joining the information work with the aim of helping as many people as possible to survive.”

(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to Arvid Johansson, October 31, 1957).

A fascinating occultist and complicated trickster figure in the annals of UFO history is Dr. Raymond Bernard, born Walter Siegmeister in New York 1901. He is best known for his 1963 volume Flying Saucers From the Earth´s Interior and his many books on health food. After several decades of adventurous life in many countries, setting up colonies for ´natural living´, he finally bought a large tract of property near the town of Joinville on Sao Francisco do Sul Island in southern Brazil. Here he established a company, Santa Catarina Banana Products, selling Banana Sugar, Dehydrated Bananas, Banana Bars and Banana Krumbles. Edith Nicolaisen was interested in the ideas and plans of Bernard and corresponded with him 1963-1965, also ordering some of his bananas. She regarded his settlement as a possible ideal community for Swedish families to escape the coming catastophies, as mentioned in this letter to Dr. Walter Bühler, Brazil.

”From Dr. Raymond Bernard I have received information about his established ´New-Californian´settlement at Barra Velha, Joinville, Santa Catarina, Brazil… Before I recommend our new-age friends here in Sweden and in Germany to buy land at Joinville for the purpose of emigrating and become new-age settlers in the ´World´s Low Fallout Zone´ I should appreciate very much to hear your opinion… Probably, you too have heard about all the fatal prophecies of various sorts, from various sources and from diffrent parts of the Globe – all pointing to the same conclusion: ´It is later than we think´! And that the years 64/65/66/67/68 will be the years of great catastrophies of different origins… I would like to get the opportunity to help as many UFO-friends with children as possible from the Northern part of the Globe to the Southern part in due time.”

(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to Walter Bühler, February 28, 1965).

Although coming catastrophies was a central idea in the mindset of Edith Nicolaisen doomsday prophecies did not appear in the literature published by Parthenon up until 1967. Instead there was a concentration on the classic UFO contactee books by George Adamski, Daniel Fry, Elisabeth Klarer, Ray and Rex Stanford. But in 1966 Edith had started a correspondence with British artist and spiritualist Liebie Pugh, resulting in the publication of a Swedish edition of her book Nothing Else Matters. The Universal Link (Universell kontakt).

The story behind Universal Link originated from the visionary and paranormal experiences of Richard Grave, Worthing, England. On April 11, 1961, while fixing up a rented house, he encountered a bearded Christlike figure who pointed to a framed picture of the Annunciation. The glass covering the picture exploded and the figure disappeared in an orange light. Later Grave discovered that salty drops formed on the surface of the picture. When media began writing of this phenomenon it was called the Weeping Angel of Worthing.

Richard Grave with the Weeping Angel of Worthing

The bearded visitor, calling himself Truth, returned to Grave on a number of occasions, delivering various messages of a vague and mystical nature. He was not exactly the humble type, referring to himself as ”I am The Truth, The Light, all in The Entire Universe” and ”How happy I am of the progress made in my universe”. Liebie Pugh contacted Richard Grave and together they founded Universal Link. Soon Universal Link groups formed around the world spreading the messages from Truth. Fervent and zealous activity in the groups began after this message from Truth: ”No one can know the day nor the hour of my coming, or when the great Universal Revelation will be enacted; however by Christmas morning, 1967, I will have revealed myself through the medium of nuclear evolution. This is My Plan which is absolute.”

Liebie Pugh at the St. Annes Centre

Even the Danish UFO research group SUFOI became for a while associated with Universal Link. Jørgen Ellesøe and Børje Jensen from SUFOI promoted the messages and Jensen wrote articles in UFO-nyt about Universal Link using the pen name N.E. Wagenda. In 1967 SUFOI published Nothing Else Matters and several Universal Link Newsletters. The situation changed radically when one member of the Danish Universal Link, Knud Weiking, began receiving messages from the Master, now referred to as Orthon. In UFO-nyt no 2, 1967 Børje Jensen concluded: ”Finally there is now evidence that Universal Link and the flying saucers are two sides of the same operation. A Universal Link Center is now founded in Denmark, under the direct supervision of space people.”

Trouble began during the Autumn of 1967 when the Danish Universal Link group announced in the press that the world will end in an atomic war Christmas 1967 and they were building a bunker to save the members from this devastation. When nothing happened at Christmas the group split into different factions.

Article from Swedish daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet about the Danish Doomsday group

In spite of this negative publicity and undeterred by the nonsensical messages from England, Edith Nicolaisen continued to promote Universal Link. But now she received protests from the Danish UFO-groups. Frank Pedersen, editor of UFO-nyt: ”You asked me in the latest letter about my honest opinion about Universal Link. In my opinion this story has been built around a few simple incidents. It is a mixture of ignorance and fraud. Drop this tale, it will only harm the UFO cause.”

(Letter from Frank Pedersen to Edith Nicolaisen March 5, 1968)

A similar protest and warning was sent from the Danish IGAP movement: ”Why have you taken up the cause of the Universal Link program? Don´t you realize that the whole ´Orthon madness´ has its origin in Universal Link? It was the Danish Universal Link group in Borup who started all this mess that wrecked so much of the UFO cause… You may cause more damage than you realize by advocating Universal Link, but it is of course your responsibility.”
(Letter from Leif Eckhoff Pedersen to Edith Nicolaisen February 20, 1968).

These protests did not affect Edith but when she continued to publish a compilation of Universal Link newsletters in 1971 even one of her closest co-workers and translators, Gulli Bergvall, abandoned Parthenon. In her last letter to Edith she stated: ”I had hoped that, at this late stage, you would have abandoned publishing the newsletters (Universal Link newsletters – HB). And I reiterate once again, if I only had had a little spiritual knowledge and insight in 1966 when I was given the task of translating the Universal Link story, I would have flatly refused. The best option now would be to forget the whole thing. I cannot understand what good it will do, in 1971, when so much water has flowed beneath the bridges, to resurrect this thread and return to what happened in St. Annes in the 1960s or with abstruse reasoning try to inject something deeply spiritual in the failed revelation of 1967. To exalt this simple story about ´the master´ (who is no master) and the accompanying rather uninterersting phenomena (the crying angel etc.) to something of spiritual significance is truly offering people stones instead of bread.”
(Letter from Gulli Bergvall to Edith Nicolaisen March 14, 1971.

Edith Nicolaisen 1962

 The Universal Link messages were not the only doomsday prophecies promoted by Edith. She was equally impressed by the prophecies of New Zealand contactee Yul Verner and she had plans to translate his The Book of Yul. The Secret Life of a Space Incarnate. Yul Verner mixed Bible prophecies with messages from his space friends.

”… I was contacted directly in 1963 by spacemen from the Andromeda constellation. It was from them that I positively learned that Jupiter was the Sun of Justice to be glorified `in a short time´, which I take to mean in 12 years, that is from May 1963 + 12 = May 1975. By that time the Earth ought to feel the impact of this event. There could be som astronomical reports beforehand, although we may have other matters on our minds then for the prophesied Great Tribulation is to take place just ahead. This means that time is at hand for a great world crisis to burst suddently upon us. As a matter of fact I have reason to believe there will be an event this November warning us about it. The contact with my space friends also made me certain that I was an incarnate from their planet MICHAEL of the Andromeda constellation. I had prior to this contact made journeys in spirit to other worlds”.
(Letter from Yul Verner to Edith Nicolaisen, August 26, 1973).

One of the foremost donors to Parthenon was Johan Häggström. Because of his economic support Edith were able to translate and publish several books in Swedish. In this letter she refer to the Verner prophecies in the hope of receiving a substantial economic contribution:
”These lines because ´the sand grains in the hourglass´ are running out faster than we earlier anticipated. And that is why we also need the help of Brother Johan to accomplish an effective information work for the benefit of the Swedish youth during the coming four years. Already in 1974 Jupiter may have manifested in our solar system as our ´new sun´ also known as ´The Sun of Justice´. This will alter the balance in our whole solar system and cause the natural catastrophies mentioned in the Bible,.. Already before 1979 our Earth would be ´cleansed´ according to Adam Rutherford, one of the most acknowledged pyramidology experts of our time.”

(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to Johan Häggström, February 2, 1970).

How come that Edith Nicolaisen, in spite of her many years of university education and wide contacts around the world did not abandon the idea of doomsday prophecies, when they constantly failed? In this respect she is a psychological riddle. These ideas became the Achilles´ heel of Parthenon. Edith often referred to her many years of study of the Esoteric Tradition, which to her essentially meant the mixture of esotericism and Christian mysticism presented by Rudolf Steiner and Max Heindel. If Edith had been better acquainted with Helena Blavatsky and Alice Bailey she would probably not have made these ”glamour” mistakes. Or, she could have simply heeded the warning about doomsday prophecies given by John Keel – ”Belief is the enemy”.

The Alien Visitors

What would happen if it could be determined with abolute certainty that the photographs and films taken by George Adamski in the 1950s and 60s are genuine, showing real unidentified alien craft? The answer is not just of scientific interest but even more so a psychological and sociological issue. How would mainstream UFO researchers react to such a revelation or rather revolution? How would this heureka moment affect the UFO research community? Maybe we will soon have the answer, coming from the investigations implemented by Danish photographer and artist Rene Erik Olsen. His second book dealing with the George Adamski photos and films have recently been published – The Alien Visitors.

In his former book, The George Adamski Story, Rene presented the remarkable results obtained by digital enhancement of the Adamski photographs. The Alien Visitors is a sequel to the first volume. This is no ordinary UFO book or research effort, but a beautiful and inspiring artwork, a real feast for the eye. There are around 80 illustrations: Adamski photos, often digitally enchanced coupled with more than 40 visionary paintings by Rene Erik Olsen. The 58 pages of text is a detailed study of the visitors technology and propulsion system.

Painting by Rene Erik Olsen

Regarding the authenticity of the Adamski photos and his contact experiences the author simply states: ”… George Adamski. A man of much controversy, but a man who was exposed to an enormous amount of factual evidence of these amazing visitor-crafts. I have been extremely fortunate to have seen some of his original photos and been provided some digitized films and enhanced some of them for this book.” (p. 61)

When reading the chapters describing the technology and propulsion of shuttle crafts and cruisers I was immediately intrigued by the very detailed presentations. I did recognize some of it from the books by George Adamski, Daniel Fry, George Van Tassel and Howard Menger, but there is also very specific new information, not presented as theories och speculation but facts. Here a few examples:

The Alien Visitors, p. 20

Painting by Rene Erik Olsen

”In certain types of shuttle crafts the pilot has the ability to make any part of the cabin wall/outer wall transparent/translucent. This ”effect” is very useful, especially when in partly stealthy mode (not wanting to be observed) – they have the ability/technology to control the appearance (at the atomic/electron level) of certain materials.” (p. 26)

”The very large cruisers of 10 to 30 miles i sizes – are a different matter. They are a planetary matter. These cruisers are small cities and can easily travel for years without returning to their original base or home planet. For all crusiers traveling great distances, maintenance is performed at selected destinations during traveling – normally planned ahead of travel. All personnel on these city-sized cruisers are specifically selected for these trips.” (p. 38)

Painting by Rene Erik Olsen

I began to suspect that Rene must be the custodian of some very special information so in an email I simply asked what are your main sources for all these data? On April 5, I received several emails - and was I in for a surprise:

” Information from two direct sources in Copenhagen - between the years 1990 - 1992. While doing research both in the U.S. and researching the Eduard Meier-case (trips to Switzerland in 1988-1990) I was contacted by many people during that period, but especially two people stood out - they knew of my research in Switzerland and my planned trip to the U.S. and they wanted to part some information on the subject. Subsequently I had four meetings with these two individuals who provided intricate details on the propulsion principles.”..

"Direct sources - Those two individuals (a woman and a man - who knew each other) had information which I could not question. The woman worked at a research lab (in Copenhagen) and the man I do not know where he was working (or if he had a job). They both knew each other (I gathered that from a joint meeting with them both) and they presented things which I had no way of proving or refuting - photos attached to metallic surfaces (never seen that before) showing crafts (both large and small) and they also showed movie-clips on what best can be described as a small "Ipad" - which was not available back then (Ipads came out in 2010). They did not tell me what to do with the information, only that they wanted to give this, so I did the prudent thing  (back then) and sat on the information. You may recall that a lot of stuff was happening in the late 1980'ies and beginning of the 1990'ies in the UFO-field (MJ-12 controversy, big-headed aliens, alien/terrestrial pact and technology transfer)."

"I sat on this information until Glenn Steckling by accident (in an email in 2017-18) told me of an observation of a mothership (with a swirling force-field moving around it) and that was when it clicked for me - and I thought I had seen this and heard a similar description of this before  (from these two sources) - Back then I checked the woman's credentials (she did work at a research lab) but two years after the last meeting she was no longer there. Both of them I have not been able to locate again, to be honest - if I could, I really would not want to. Of course I asked them where they had the information from, but from the way they looked at me, it seemed self-explanatory. I think they wanted me to make my own conclusions. I sort of have. That is why I describe these two people as direct-sources. But I have no way of proving it… The two of them were looking just like you and me (meaning Caucasian in appearance and nothing special about them - seemed like two ordinary people you could meet on the street - but the only thing that stood out was that they were very patient with me - because I asked a lot of questions (talking fast when I get excited).”

Rene Erik Olsen

Rene is here indicating the possibility that the couple could have been visitors or contactees themselves, covertly involved in co-operation with the visitors. This naturally opens up for hundreds of follow-up questions and research. Rene mention that further data may be published in coming books and on his website. The Aliens Visitors is suddenly not only a book about George Adamski and the interpretation of his photos but of a second mystery as well. Who were the strangers that contacted Rene Erik Olsen – and why was he given this unique information?

Inside of shuttle craft. Painting by Rene Erik Olsen

Readers of my blog are aware of that I have advanced the theory that George Adamski was involved in a psychological and cultural influence test in the 1950s. An experiment implemented by a group of benevolent aliens, earth based or extraterrestrial, a group with access to “vimana” technology.  Some of the people contacted tried their best to implement the projects and ideas received by the visitors. Others couldn´t stand the psychological strain and social stigma of the experiences or invented fake stories when the real contacts ended. During my many years of investigation and documentation of physical contactee cases I have found enough circumstantial empirical evidence to accept some of the 1950s contact experiences as valid and worthy of further study and analysis. "Scientific" ufology usually regard this group of contactees as charlatans and impostors but I am too old to play the ufologically correct game and sing in the debunking choir. In the George Adamski case there is a lot of circumstial evidence indicating he really did meet alien visitors from somewhere. Here a few examples:

Timothy Good interviewing Lucy McGinnis, former secretary of George Adamski.
”Lucy McGinnis: This was at Palomar. I was in my room lying down… in the afternoon… I don´t know what date it was… I was lying down and for some reason I got up and went out… And I looked up, and here was this great big thing. I was amazed. It was a saucer-like, and it was big. As I looked up I could see through it: it was two stories. You could see the steps where they were going up and down… I don´t remember how many people I saw – but they were moving around.

Timothy Good: Were they men or women, or both?

Lucy McGinnis: I couldn´t say because they had kind of like… ski-suits. But they were ordinary, fastened around the ankle, and pant-like deal, blouse deal…

Timothy Good: If the whole craft was transparent, could you see any machinery, or anything like that, or darker patches than others?

Lucy McGinnis; Yeah, you could see, but you couldn´t – or at least I couldn´t tell what it was.

Timothy Good: Did it have the same shape as the classical Adamski craft?

Lucy McGinnis: Yes, the round one…. It was kind of hovering up there and then suddenly it just started going up – drifting away.”
(Timothy Good interview with Lucy McGinnis, Nov 20, 1979).

Lucy McGinnis

Desmond Leslie´s observation of a golden disc at Palomar Gardens in 1954.

”We were sitting on the patio in the twilight, George, Alice Wells, Lucy McGinnis, and I with my back turned facing the doorway. A curious cold feeling came over me as of being watched, as if someone or something was standing directly behind me. I swung around in time to see a small golden disc between us and the Live Oaks fifty feet away. Almost instantly it shot up in the air with an imperceptible swish leaving a faint trail behind it, then vanished. George grinned solemnly. `I was wondering when you were going to notice that!`. I was amazed. `One of those remote control things?`I believe I asked. He nodded.”
(Desmond Leslie & George Adamski, Flying Saucers Have Landed, Revised and enlarged edition, Neville Spearman, London 1970, pp. 243-244.)

Desmond Leslie and George Adamski 1954

George Adamski´s former co-worker Lou Zinssstag mention this episode from Adamski´s hotel i Basle 1959.

”Yes, indeed I had a good rest, but this morning I had a visit from two of the boys who came to my room at nine o´clock” I was flabbergasted because I realized what he meant by this. It was his manner to call his extraterrestrial friends `boys`when he was pleased. It was hard even for me to believe him at that moment, but he insisted that there were several in Basle at that time. On a number of mornings that week he told the same story, so I decided to check on it. I asked the hotel manager, as well as the porter who I knew well, if Adamski did indeed have any visitors in the morning. ”Yes”, both men said. There are several men who come at about nine o ´clock, but never more than two at a time.” I felt that they were wondering about it, but, of course, I could not enlighten them.”
Lou Zinsstag & Timothy Good, George Adamski. The Untold Story, p. 30.

There is definitely a deeper mystery connected with George Adamski and several of the early 1950s contactees. We have only begun to scratch the surface of this great enigma. To delve into these aspects of the UFO riddle the ufologist has to be both a meticulous, critical investigator and a detective. In-depth research of close encounter and contact cases of this type is time-consuming and can be quite unnerving as you will discover facts very difficult or impossible to publish. Ufology at this level is very far from writing reports of lights in the sky or being entertained by fake videos on YouTube. You have all the chances of entering Forbidden Science. But then remember the motto of Riley Crabb, the late director of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation: ”If I have one goal in life it is an uncompromising search for Truth, whatever that might be, and wherever it may lead.”