EXCERPT
BY TIM CALLAHAN On the evening of November 20, 1952, George Adamski led two women and two couples out into the California dessert in the hope that they might make contact with space visitors. He asked his companions to wait while he went on ahead. While alone he claimed to have met a man from Venus named Orthon. One of the women, Alice Wells, made a drawing of Orthon, based on Adamski’s description. The drawing is of a tall very human looking being wearing a jump suit remarkably like that worn by the actor Michael Rennie in the role of Klaatu, the benign alien who came to warn the human race of the threat of nuclear war in the 1951 film The Day the Earth StoodStill.1
Were this the only example of a “close encounter” with aliens that reflected imagery and themes previously appearing in films, television and other media, the resemblance of Orthon to Klaatu could by explained as mere coincidence. Likewise the assertion that Adamski based Orthon on Klaatu could be easily refuted as an example of the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (“after this, therefore because of this”). After all, Orthon’s shoulder length blond hair is nothing like Klaatu’s fairly short dark hair.