UFOs of the Gigantic Size: Motherships from the Stars?

My previous article was on the subject of small, mysterious objects seen in the skies for decades. Today, however, I’m going to foucus on huge UFOs: the exact opposite. So, let’s have a lok at some of the biggest UFOs out there. UFOs come in all sorts of shapes: flying saucers, cigar-shaped craft, flying triangles, and rocket-like vehicles. And that’s just the start of it. There is also the matter of the sizes of some of these craft. Indeed, there are a number of cases that suggest at least some UFOs are massive in size. And that’s what today’s article is all about. With that said, let’s take a look at some cases that fall into that giant-sized category. As its staff state: “The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is responsible for the regulation of aviation safety in the U.K., determining policy for the use of airspace, the economic regulation of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports, the licensing and financial fitness of airlines and the management of the ATOL financial protection scheme for holidaymakers.” Over the years the CAA has received more than a few UFO reports, which is hardly surprising. The same goes for numerous military agencies around the world, too. But, it was the period of the 1950s that really got the “huge UFOs” phenomenon going.

UFOs come in all sorts of shapes: flying saucers, cigar-shaped craft, flying triangles, and rocket-like vehicles. And that’s just the start of it. There is also the matter of the sizes of some of these craft. Indeed, there are a number of cases that suggest at least some UFOs are massive in size. And that’s what today’s article is all about. With that said, let’s take a look at some cases that fall into that giant-sized category. As its staff state: “The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is responsible for the regulation of aviation safety in the U.K., determining policy for the use of airspace, the economic regulation of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports, the licensing and financial fitness of airlines and the management of the ATOL financial protection scheme for holidaymakers.” Over the years the CAA has received more than a few UFO reports, which is hardly surprising. Let’s take a look at one such CAA report that is focused on a UFO of huge proportions. The summary of the report reads as follows: “12 Jun 82 Dinkelsbuhi – Large translucent object 500 feet long at 41,000 feet. ATCC [Air Traffic Control Center] requested subject aircraft to investigate this object which was found to have the form of a double rectangle surmounted by a globe (egg shape) crowned by a silver cone. Object observed by all on board.”

Now, let’s take a leap back to the 1950s. On the morning of April 4, 1957 – according to now-declassified British Royal Air Force documents housed at the National Archive, Kew, England – radar operators at Balscalloch, Scotland reported to RAF West Freugh, Wigtownshire that they had detected a number of “unidentified objects on the screens of their radars.” And it quickly became apparent this was no Cold War penetration of British airspace by Soviet spy-planes or bombers. As the mystified radar-operators watched their screens, they were amazed to see a large, stationary object hovering at 50,000 feet that then proceeded to ascend vertically to no less than 70,000 feet. According to the files: “A second radar was switched on and detected the object at the same range and height.” Most significant of all at this stage was the assessment by the radar experts of the incredible proportions of the UFOs: “It was noted by the radar operators that the sizes of the echoes were considerably larger than would be expected from normal aircraft. In fact they considered that the size was nearer that of a ship’s echo.”

Consider this case from 1951, which is described in the files of Fort Monmouth, New Jersey: ““On September 20, Andrew J. Reid G-2 [Army Intelligence] Ft. Monmouth, NJ, provided following report of unconventional aircraft observed by radar at above Army installation. On Sept 10, fifty one], an AN/MPG-1 radar set picked up a fast moving low flying target, exact altitude undetermined at approximately 11:10 a.m., southeast of Ft. Monmouth at a range of about twelve thousand yards. The target appeared to approximately follow the coast line, changing its range only slightly but changing its azimuth rapidly. The radar set was set to full aided azimuth tracking which normally is fast enough to track jet aircraft, but in this case was too slow to be resorted to. Target was lost in the N.E. at a range of about fourteen thousand yards. “This target also presented an unusually strong return for aircraft, being comparable in strength to that usually received from a coastal ship. The operator initially identified target as a ship and then realized that it could not be a ship after he observed its extreme speed.”

In 1952, radar operator William Maguire had an extraordinary, radar-based UFO encounter in 1952. It was while he was stationed at Royal Air Force Sandwich in Kent, England. Of his experience, Maguire said: “The mechanics were being blamed for not calibrating the instruments properly; we were being blamed for not interpreting the readings properly. But the obvious answer staring us in the face, on every single instrument on the base, was the fact that there was sitting up at an unbelievable height, this enormous thing with the equivalent mass of a warship.” Similarly, there are the words of John Oliver, who had his encounter with a huge UFO in 1949. Once again, it was a radar-based encounter. He recalled: “The general consensus regarding its size, among the very experienced radar personnel engaged in the operations, was that the object offered an echo similar to that of a large passenger or freighter surface vessel, something in the region of 15,000 or 20,00 tons.”

Born in Poland in 1891, George Adamski – of Flying Saucers Have Landed notoriety – was the ultimate “contactee,” regardless of what you may or may not think of him and his tales. He defined what it meant in the 1950s to have interactions with beings from other worlds; creatures very much like us and who wished us nothing but goodwill. Adamski’s primary visitor from the great beyond was Orthon. Adamski’s forays into the world of the supernatural, however, did not begin when the flying saucer phenomenon was at its height. Adamski had been involved in matters of a metaphysical type for years. For example, in April 1934, the Los Angeles Times ran a feature on the man himself with a headline that succinctly read as follows: “Shamanistic Order to be Established Here.”  I should stress I’m not a supporter of Adamski’s claims – at all. But, if we are going to talk about huge UFOs, we have to at least make a note about his over the top claims.

It was early on the morning of November 20, 1952. Adamski and his faithful secretary Lucy McGinnis drove to Blythe, California. This was not your average road-trip, however. Adamski, when telling the story to whoever would listen, claimed that the reason for hitting the road to Blythe had an astonishing purpose behind it: aliens dearly wanted to meet with the professor-who-wasn’t. The pair soon met up with other characters in 1950s-era Ufology. They included UFO enthusiasts Al and Betty Bailey, and George Hunt Williamson. The latter was a controversial contactee who crossed paths with the FBI on several occasions, most seriously in 1962. That was when Williamson was suspected by the Bureau of smuggling priceless Mexican artifacts of an historic and archaeological significance into the United States. After refueling their vehicles and their stomachs, the gang then headed out to Parker, Arizona – where, Adamski said, he was absolutely sure that aliens were soon to put in an appearance. So the tale goes, that’s exactly what happened. A huge, “cigar”-shaped UFO loomed into view, high in the skies above Parker. The amazed crew hit a dirt-road in hot pursuit of the mighty craft. Adamski and co. were, apparently, not the only ones who were looking for a close encounter. Adamski claimed that a squadron of U.S. Air Force planes were also after the aliens. The people from the stars almost effortlessly made a quick escape from the pursuing pilots. 

It wasn’t long before a much smaller flying saucer made its appearance before the astonished group. In an almost Old Testament-style fashion, the gleaming craft landed on a nearby mountain, awaiting the disciple-like Adamski to come forward and meet his superior. He somehow knew that the aliens had come for him. Adamski approached the craft, while the rest – their mouths no doubt agape – looked on. An extremely-human-looking extraterrestrial exited the futuristic craft, just as Michael Rennie’s character of Klaatu did in the classic 1951 movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still. Unlike Klaatu, though, Adamski’s alien – who announced himself as Orthon – had long hair of the kind that just about any and every 1980s-era “hair-metal” rock band would have been proud to sport. Orthon announced to Adamski that he came from Venus – and that he came in peace, too. In no time at all, Orthon began lecturing Adamski on why we, the human race, needed to ditch our atomic weapons. If we didn’t, the only outcome would be overwhelming, worldwide destruction. Not only that, Orthon wanted Adamski to be one of the key figures in the plan to save the Earth and its people. In an instant, Adamski was up for the challenge. Orthon, seemingly happy with the outcome, returned to his flying saucer and shot off into the skies. An alien had come and gone, and for Adamski a new life had just begun. 

There’s no doubt that George Adamski was at the height of his fame from the early-to-mid 1950s, with the absolute peak year being 1953. That was when his book, Flying Saucers Have Landed, was published. It sold more than 100,000 copies in the process. The book was curious not just because of its content – controversial encounters with human-like aliens – but also because of how it was written. And who by. It was credited to Adamski and an Irish writer named Desmond Leslie. That’s not entirely wrong; but, it’s important to note that it’s not precisely correct, either. It so happens that in the same time-fame that Adamski was toiling on his book, Leslie was working on a publication on strange phenomena in the skies: UFOs. Leslie got his hands on sixty pages of a manuscript on Adamski’s claimed encounters that he, Adamski, had cobbled together in somewhat chaotic fashion. An agreement was made to combine the two works-in-progress and fuse them into one, which is exactly what happened. The reality, though, is that those sixty pages were not written by Adamski, at all. They were actually ghost-written by Adamski’s secretary, Lucy McGinnis. Adamski dictated the story to McGinnis, who made the whole thing readable, if not particularly believable.  

On this issue of believability, or of a significant lack of it, we need to return to the words of the Gorightly-Bishop team: “Flying Saucers Have Landed wasn’t Adamski’s first stab at literary immortality. In the 1940s, he submitted a science-fiction yarn called ‘Pioneers of Space’ to Amazing Stories that featured an extraterrestrial messianic figure who comes to Earth bearing a message of peace and love. Adamski later self-published a book version of Pioneers of Space that fell by the wayside until debunkers rediscovered the work and pointed to it as an early fictional account of his Orthon encounter.” The odd thing is that Adamski faked tales of giant-sized UFOs when real huge Saucers were being monitored by the U.K. and the U.S military. Ufology is certainly a weird phenomenon!