The original page is no longer online, so in honor of the Supreme Commander, we’ll preserve it here for posterity.

WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL JAMES W. MOSELEY 50TH ANNIVERSARY ROAST PAGE… AND YOUR CHANCE TO TELL JIM EXACTLY WHAT YOU THINK OF HIM!

“I do have a serious interest in UFOs,
and I did have a serious interest even back
when I was doing hoaxes, but my *approach*
is not serious. I like to enjoy myself.”
— James W. Moseley

The months November 2003 through July 2004 ring in James W. Moseley’s 50th year of saucering, of telling it shockingly close to how it is in the wonderfully weird world of ufology–50 madcap years as Serious Ufologist (his Adamski expose), UFOhoaxer (the Straith letter), Semi-Serious Ufologist (his 4-D Theory), and Reigning Court Jester of The Field. This makes Jim one of if not the longest surviving continuously active saucerer on (this) planet!

“November 2003 through July 2004?” you wonder. Yes, like most everything else in ufology, the exact beginning of Jim’s checkered ufological career is a few degrees out of phase with 3-D “reality,” a tad hard to pin down. It was in mid-November 1953 that Jim set out on a cross-country trek to interview as many saucer spotters, experts, and interesting-for-various-reasons others as possible for a UFO book he planned to write. He managed to bag more than 100 interviews, all of them still interesting, some still of ufological importantance. However, the book didn’t get published till 2002, forming the basis of the 1950s section of Jim’s and my Shockingly Close to the Truth!–Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist (Prometheus Books). In July 1954, Jim published the first issue of his saucerzine Nexus, which a year later became Saucer News, which in the 1970s devolved into today’s Saucer Smear. So when was the momentous 50-year mark actually reached? Was it when Jim jumped into his shiny new ’53 Hudson and hit the saucer road? Or was it when he dedicated himself to “the highest principles of ufological journalism”?

As for Steve, Matt, and me, we’re going to celebrate the entire 9 months here on the Moseley Roast Page, and we hope “billions and billions” of you will join us. Okay, okay. We’re a little late getting started, but please don’t hold that against us. Join in the fun anyway. What fun, you say?…

We know that more than a few of you out there have Moseley tales to tell, memories of Jim, fond and otherwise, funny, illuminating, all worth sharing, yarns sure to inspire a laugh or two, certain to recall glorious and inglorious past Moseleyean ufological happenings and adventures to the minds of others to be shared, too. Many of you no doubt have photos and other memorabilia that capture interesting times in Jim’s saucering past. And who knows what else lurks in wait to catch the Supreme Commander all unaware and recall the Goode Olde Daze and Just Yesterdaze, too, and Jim’s part in them.

Now’s the time and here’s the place to let it all hang out, tell it like it is or was. Post your thoughts, memories, good wishes, whatevers here–now, tomorrow, and the next day. Come back and read and view them now and then, and add more as this churns and stirs your memories–but not, we hope, your stomachs. When July rolls around, or perhaps a bit later in the year, at a time and place and in a manner yet to be determined but guaranteed to be Gloriously Semi-Perfect, all will be presented to Jim. We’ll keep everyone posted here as plans develop.

Yours in Research, Karl Pflock, C.E., M.P.OC., S.S. 5th Col.

Links to original archived pages:

http://web.archive.org/web/20131013084737/http://www.martiansgohome.com/moseley_roast/

http://web.archive.org/web/20110725234335/http://www.martiansgohome.com/moseley_roast/memories.html

Two Spooks Doing Their Thing?
By Gene Steinberg 

(Reprinted with permission from the January 12, 2014 Paracast Newsletter)

Lots of people have stories about the antics in which two outrageous UFO personalities, Gray Barker and Jim Moseley, engaged. While pretending to be at loggerheads to each other on a variety of issues in flying saucer research, they were actually close friends who enjoyed playing pranks and the expense of others.

Perhaps the most notorious hoax was the Straith Letter, written on purloined U.S. government stationery, which was said to originate from a mythical Cultural Exchange Committee. Sent in 1957, one copy went to UFO contactee George Adamski, and claimed that the authorities actually believed his alleged experiences were genuine. Of course, Adamski took the hint and went with it, claiming it proved his claims were true. After all, why would the government send such a letter?

The Straith Letter was exposed as a fraud early on; the writing style was Barker’s through and through. And after Barker’s death in 1984, Moseley confessed to this and other pranks that the fun-loving pair played over the years.

But some have long wondered whether the antics of Barker and Moseley had a more nefarious purpose than just satisfying the guilty pleasures of two men on a drunken spree. From time to time, some even suggested that Moseley was actually a government agent of some sort.

Now anyone who knew Jim well, as I did, would find him the polar opposite of anyone who’d possibly become involved in government work, particularly as a spy or military agent. He just didn’t strike you as someone who’d kowtow to authority, any authority. But maybe looks deceived, for he was also the son of a noted U.S. military figure, one Major General George Van Horn Moseley, Jr., who became Vice Chief of Staff for the Army during President Hoover’s administration.

I always considered Jim to be the family black sheep, and certainly some of the letters he received from his dad, which he showed to me, indicated that to be the case. I recall one missive, for example, in which Jim’s dad was suggesting to his mother that he be sent to boarding school to get him straightened out.

That would hardly be the profile of a would-be government spook.

Dr. D and the Earth Theory

But some of that belief in a possible military connection was encouraged by Jim himself, when he adopted the so-called “Earth Theory,” about UFOs, that they were actually secret aircraft undergoing test flights. To be sure, this may be a possibility in some cases, particularly the early sightings. There are some who believe the Roswell, NM crash involved just such a craft, and the same might be true for the nine UFOs seen by Kenneth Arnold in 1947, which were credited with triggering worldwide interest in the subject.

As to Jim, he ultimately abandoned the theory, and adopted a view that went beyond the ET explanation, one he called “three-and-a-half D.” So during an appearance on the Long John Nebel radio show back in the 1960s, Jim claimed that a colleague of his, one Dr. Leon Davidson, a chemical engineer and scientist, mislead him about some of the evidence pointing to an Earth-based explanation. Curious? You bet.

Now Dr. Davidson, who died in 2007, is mentioned as a member of the team that developed the original atomic bomb during World War II. He is best known in the UFO field, however, as the result of getting approval to publish and distribute the Air Force’s Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14. This volume contained a wealth of significant information about early sightings, although the Air Force continued to insist that there was nothing unconventional about UFOs.

But Dr. Davidson was also one of Jim’s close friends, so one supposes he may have indeed been quite influential. I wouldn’t presume to hazard a guess, though it’s also possible Jim promoted the Earth Theory merely to be controversial and to foster the impression of some sort of government connection.

The Silence Group Locks Down Project Blue Book

Even as I reflect on Jim, and my dealings with him over the years, I couldn’t for the life of me believe he was ever a government agent. As I said, he was the last person you’d expect to assume that role. At the same time, however, he’d be the first person a spook agency might consider if they wanted someone who wouldn’t be suspected of any such connection. After all, he did know some people in high places. He was also one of the few UFO researchers to be granted direct access to some of the actual case documents available at Project Blue Book’s headquarters, and maintained long-term friendships with a couple of the people who headed that agency.

During the early 1950s, for example, Jim visited Project Blue Book and was allowed to transcribe some cases using an office typewriter. These documents included some of the very same cases that Major Donald E. Keyhoe received verbally, usually via telephone. But when Keyhoe found out what Jim was doing, he reportedly blew a fuse and complained bitterly. Jim told me years later that the Air Force decided then and there to cut back on media and researcher access to these records.

In other words, as Jim said to me with a chuckle in his voice on a number of occasions, Keyhoe was responsible for causing some of the UFO secrecy he continued to fight against.

I suppose I’m making a good argument here in favor of the possibility that Jim’s government connections extended beyond what you might expect considering his father’s military background. But I can’t think of anyone who knew Jim well who’d believe for a moment that he was a spy who got involved in the UFO field to stir things up.

The Agent from Clarksville, WV 

As to Gray Barker, I didn’t know him quite as well, but he could become fairly wacky after consuming a six-pack of his favorite beer. I remember on one occasion when he asked me to help him run off copies of a satirical—and extremely funny—book on his office offset printing machine. Even if I had the slightest suspicion that Jim was involved with the government, I couldn’t conceive of any instance where Gray was similarly involved.

Of course, if I learned that either or both were agents all along, I’d find it quite humorous. “Imagine that!” I’d say out loud with a chuckle. But I still wouldn’t believe a word of it.

Copyright 1999-2014 Making The Impossible, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Greg Neilson has been working hard updating the Jim Moseley Wikipedia page, receiving input from Robert Sheaffer and Curt Collins.

Greg has put in a lot of work on this, and he’s done a great job of adding vital material and properly sourcing it all. Greg’s just posted the revised page- Bravo!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W._Moseley

On pages 236-240 of Shockingly Close to the Truth, Jim Moseley tells about  he tells about a New Jersey UFO case  that led him to cross paths with Budd Hopkins. Here’s a different, contemporary account of the events from Genevea Hagen.

The Night the UFOs Didn’t Land in North Hudson Park

by Geneva Hagen

from Crossroads Quarterly, Summer 1976 (Vol. 1, No. 1)

At least twice during the past two years, UFOs did land in North Hudson Park—a site in North Bergen, N.J., just across the river from Manhattan. The first sighting took place around 3:00 a.m. during the middle of January 1975, by a 72-year-old man named George O’Barski. The second sighting took place at the same spot almost exactly a year later, on January 15, 1976, also at 3:00 a.m. The clock time is of passing interest, since statistics show that, especially considering the small number of people outdoors at that time, a large percentage of UFO sightings do take place at 3:00 a.m.

Details about the second sighting are being kept quiet, but the first has become fairly well publicized. George O’Barski was driving home from work one night, and his usual shortcut took him through North Hudson Park. He noticed a lot of static coming over his car radio, and the station began to fade out. He slowed the car while he tried to adjust the radio, and then he heard a droning sound, similar to a refrigerator’s hum. He saw a large bright object fly past, behind a row of trees, going in the same direction he was. The object stopped and hovered about 10 feet off the ground. O’Barski’s friend Budd Hopkins later wrote up the story for THE VILLAGE VOICE and gave this description:

“The UFO was about 30 feet in diameter, flat on the bottom, with vertical sides and a domed top. Its maximum height was about eight feet. It was surrounded with regularly spaced vertical windows, about a foot and a half wide and an equal distance apart. The object itself was dark, but intense light shone from the windows, illuminating the ground nearby.”

George O’Barski saw a vertical door open on one side of the UFO, and about 10 figures came down some kind of ladder or stairs. They were tiny, about 3½ feet tall, wearing some kind of helmet and light-colored coveralls. Each carried a bag and a little spoon or shovel. They quickly dug in the soil, filling their bags with dirt. The whole thing happened very fast, as though they had planned exactly what to do and wasted no time about it. In less than four minutes they were back inside their craft, which then flew off to the north. O’Barski had continued driving slowly in his car while he watched all this, and was 60 feet away at the closest point.

Well, needless to say, George was a little shaken up over the whole thing. He did what you or I probably would have done under the same circumstances. He went home, took two aspirins, and pulled the bedcovers over his head.

The next morning he returned to the park. There, in the spot where he had seen the UFO land, he found about 15 little holes in the ground, several inches deep. Even then he could hardly believe his own experience. He put his hand into one of the holes, just to make sure it was really there. Then he went home and took two more aspirins.

In spite of all this, George O’Barski didn’t assume he had seen little green men from Mars. He thought maybe the government was experimenting with a new type of aircraft.

Almost a year later, O’Barski and three other men—Budd Hopkins, who later wrote about the sighting for the VOICE, and Ted Bloecher and Jerry Stoehrer of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON)—went to North Hudson Park and attempted to re-enact the encounter.

The UFO had landed in a large, flat field used as a ballpark. It is about 1,000 feet away from the huge, round Stonehenge apartment building. When the researchers checked the site, it was covered with thick grass—except for 15 or so small bare circles. These areas were not holes, but they showed no sign even of grass roots. It was later discovered that the holes had been filled in during the summer by the park custodian.

On questioning the doorman at the Stonehenge apartments, Hopkins discovered that sometime in January, in the early morning hours, a plate-glass window in the lobby had been mysteriously shattered. Bill Pawlowski, the doorman who had been on duty that night, was no longer employed there. On tracing him down, Hopkins learned that something very odd had happened on the night the window broke.

Pawlowski had looked toward the park and seen some very bright lights shining toward him. There was a regularly spaced horizontal row of about 10 to 15 of them, apparently about 10 feet off the ground. He could see a dark form around the row of lights, and knew that this was something out of the ordinary.

He was in the process of telephoning a tenant in the building, when he heard a high-pitched noise and a sudden crack, as the window glass shattered near his feet. When he looked up again, the lights were gone.

He called the police, who discovered an indentation on the outside part of the glass, from which radiated cracks. No projectile was ever found in the nearby area, and apparently whatever had struck the glass had not passed all the way through. Pawlowski didn’t mention the UFO to the policemen at that time, but a few hours later he did describe it to another policeman with whom he was friendly.

The response? “He must’ve been drinking or something.”

Pawlowski’s story backed up O’Barski’s in every detail, although there had been no communication between the two men. The March 1, 1976, issue of THE VILLAGE VOICE carried the story by Budd Hopkins: “Sane Citizen Sees UFO.” It caused quite a stir, because it is very unusual to have such a major UFO sighting so near a metropolitan area.

Although Hopkins published no details of the UFO sighted on January 15, 1976, some investigations by James W. Moseley, a researcher from Fort Lee, N.J., disclosed that it had also been witnessed by employees of the Stonehenge apartment building. In fact, Moseley found that almost all the staff of Stonehenge had had unusual sightings recently, as had a few of the tenants. Some were unwilling to talk about it, because of fear of ridicule. But some new information did come to light. I quote now from Jim’s own small-circulation UFO newsletter, which changes its name from issue to issue:

“On at least three different nights in February, a mysterious figure was seen very late at night, wandering in the part of North Hudson Park which is nearest to Stonehenge. We interviewed three witnesses among the night staff, one of whom described the figure as about five feet tall, wearing a helmet with a light coming out of it, like a miner’s helmet. The figure avoided the streetlights, walked in a robot-like manner, and was constantly bending down in an awkward way, apparently to pick up something from the ground. His face was invisible because of the darkness, and he seemed to look up at the sky a lot. The police were not called, apparently because of the New York adage to mind your own business unless being attacked; and since the being was not on Stonehenge property, the night staff just stayed in their foyer and watched.

“Whether or not the above has any connection with UFOs, we do not know. But the local papers in recent weeks have been full of saucer sightings from the same area.”

From this point on, the Earthlings got in on the act. It happened that in early March, one Warren Freiberg, a well-known Chicago radio personality who also claims to be a psychic, and his wife Libby, a trance medium, spent some time in the New York City area on their honeymoon. They had come to “deghost” some haunted houses.

The Freibergs held the theory that UFOs are not actual material objects, but are instead telepathic images. That isn’t as far-out as it might sound. Many prominent researchers are now leaning toward the idea that UFOs are manifestations of some force that we can’t perceive directly in its true form—so instead, we represent it to ourselves in symbolic form, with some people seeing spaceships, some seeing angels and some seeing pink elephants, according to their psychological inclination. Such manifestations often appear repeatedly near the same locations, which are theorized to be places where the universal energy fields intersect in such a way that other dimensions, or “alternate realities,” can interact with our own. These locations are sometimes called “window areas”; the Bermuda Triangle is perhaps the best-known example.

Two New York publicists, Timothy Green Beckley and Harold Salkin, were hired to coordinate a UFO séance while the Freibergs were in town. The séance was scheduled for midnight on Saturday, March 6, at which time a small group would convene in North Hudson Park and attempt to make contact with the space people. Since he lives very near the park, Jim Moseley agreed to host a press conference that night at his own apartment.

Unfortunately, the press releases given out several days earlier had been a little too specific. They not only mentioned that a séance was in the offing, but gave the exact time and place. One local paper set the scene by running an article headed: “Saucer Hunters to be Ejected.” Seems there is an 11:00 p.m. curfew in North Hudson Park. Moseley hastily phoned the local police headquarters and was assured there would be no legal problems.

Things started off as scheduled with the press conference in Jim’s apartment. I arrived late, along with denton/Thor, to find the Freibergs talking with a group of reporters. Warren Freiberg was describing some of his discoveries as a psychic.

Yes, he said, there does appear to be life after death, but not necessarily in the conventional religious sense of “heaven or hell.” He had encountered a surprising number of miserable, “earthbound” spirits during his ghost-hunting. He started out as a skeptic, but became a believer in psychic phenomena after a medium was a guest on his radio talk show and enabled him to communicate with his dead grandfather.

Although Warren had developed psychic abilities of his own, Libby Freiberg was also said to be an excellent trance medium, and it was through her that they hoped to establish telepathic contact with the UFO entities. Jim confided to me privately that he had been forewarned that we could expect some sort of environmental message!

Toward midnight, our group headed for North Hudson Park. We had expected to find it almost deserted at that late hour. To our amazement, it was mobbed with people. There was even a problem finding places to park the cars. A milling crowd filled the ball park; many looked like teenagers.

“I don’t believe it,” muttered one reporter. “I even see somebody selling hotdogs.”

At first I wondered if we’d been unlucky enough to schedule the séance at the same time as some sports event. It was hard to imagine that many people had spontaneously turned out on such a cold and windy Saturday midnight to witness a UFO séance that hadn’t even invited public attendance. I remembered how, a year and a half earlier, I had been co-sponsor of a real UFO researchers’ convention that drew far fewer participants in spite of all the publicity we could give it. I estimated well over 500 people were in the park that night. And true to their word, the police were not represented.

“Some people will do anything for publicity,” Jim muttered under his breath. “I thought we were going to have about ten people. And now it’s going to look like I was behind all this. Now I’ll never be respected by serious researchers!”

“Where are the saucers?” the crowd hollered as we made our way toward the “landing field.” I could hardly believe the Freibergs still intended to go through with the séance. Were they masochists, publicity freaks, or just plain stupid?

Warren Freiberg explained the plans as best he could, addressing the crowd in his resonant, authoritative radio announcer’s voice. We members of the “inner circle” held hands and formed a circle in an effort to hold back the masses. The masses didn’t seem too amenable to being held back, however.

The Freibergs spread a blanket on the ground, kneeled on it facing each other, and joined hands. The crowd had been asked to chant “Alpha! Omega!” to aid in their meditation. Some of us dutifully followed the instructions. There were also chants of “Frisbee! Frisbee!” as well as other, more obscene mantras.

As Warren’s voice dropped lower and lower, the crowd pushed in closer and closer. Some of them seemed quite rowdy, and I began to fear for the Freibergs’ safety. I fervently hoped that a UFO would drop out of the sky and scare the shit out of that mob. But no such luck.

At last the pressure from the crowd forced several people to release their handclasps. The circle was broken, and immediately the mob was right down upon the Freibergs. I shudder to think what might have been their fate, had there at that moment not appeared a small figure in a tinfoil suit, carrying a flare. “There’s one!” someone shouted, and off the crowd sprinted in hot pursuit.

The “spaceman” managed to escape, and so did the Freibergs, who quickly ran off in the opposite direction. They took refuge in the car they had come in; the crowd followed close behind, rocking the car and pounding on the windshields, determined to get their full entertainment value. One woman stationed herself defiantly in front of the car, but she jumped aside at the last moment when she Saw that the frightened driver meant business.

All in all, it was as sad a spectacle of human behavior as I ever hope to see.

About an hour later, our party reconvened in the lobby of the Stonehenge building, and from there we proceeded up onto the roof, where it was utterly cold and windy and awful, even worse than the park. Not wanting to let the reporters go back without a message, the Freibergs resumed their séance at that new location. By this time I was thoroughly fed up with the whole scene and did not stay to watch it, but later that night I did listen to a tape recording made then. I’m sorry to say, it was not at all a convincing performance; I’ve heard better on the Late Show.

Libby Freiberg started talking in a deep, groaning, mechanical voice, identifying herself as an entity called Calderin, whose people are called the Grapalins. To the question, “Where are you?” the reply was predictable: “We are here, and yet we are not here…” (In other words, from that other dimension we postulated earlier.)  As we had also suspected, the Grapalins had been taking soil samples in the park and they were concerned about our environment, which they somehow share. And they would soon provide unmistakable evidence of their existence, by appearing over Times Square on July 4th. Dig it, a Bicentennial UFO!

Libby ended her trance on an appropriate note—an earsplitting shriek.

Now, who am I to say the Freibergs are not genuine psychics? Let’s just say that I didn’t see any evidence of it that night. Of course, no real psychic could have tuned in under those conditions—but when you are a public performer, the show must go on, even if you have to fake it.

It will be after July 4th by the time this sees print. Don’t feel too bad if you weren’t around to watch the display over Times Square. I think a better bet might be North Hudson Park, around 3:00 a.m. next January 15th. See you then?

George Adamski, R.E. Straith and the Seven Letters of Mischief

Click documents for larger, readable versions.

George Adamski became a major flying saucer celebrity after the release of his 1953 book, Flying Saucers Have Landed, where he told the story of encountering and communicating with Orthon, the pilot of a landed extraterrestrial spaceship. He later produced movies and still photographs and continued to have contact and adventures with the visitors from space.  His success seemed to inspire a group of similar claimants, who became known as the Contactees.

Not everyone swallowed the stories. Upstart flying saucer magazine publisher James W. Moseley had interviewed Adamski in 1953, and had not been convinced.  In his Saucer News magazine, he published articles critically examining Adamski’s stories and photographs, and in October 1957 published a special “Adamski exposé” issue of Saucer News. 

George Adamski continued his celebrity status and following. Just as word of his fakery was spreading, a letter of support from an unlikely source entered the picture.

My Dear Professor…

In December 1957, Adamski received a letter from R.E. Straith of the “Cultural Exchange Committee,” that stated that the US Government could not officially endorse him, but privately offered their support. Straith and his agency could not be located for verification, but Adamski and his followers proudly displayed the letter was evidence of his credibility.

The letter was controversial, and its origin was a mystery, but the puzzle was compounded even further by the fact that there were other mysterious letters sent to UFO researchers…

 THE A. P. R. O. BULLETIN July, 1958  ()

THE STRAITH LETTER- And Then There Were Three

To Lex Mebane/Ted Bloecher of CSI

“One of these, on U.S. Information Agency stationery, went to Laura Mundo, a longtime fan and booster of George Adamski. Another, on a different organization’s letterhead, went to APRO’s Coral Lorenzen. Still another, signed by ‘A. G. Matthews, Chief, Liaison, Internal Affiairs’ (of what agency I don’t recall and the surviving carbon doesn’t reveal), went to Manon Darlaine, the Hollywood saucer enthusiast whom I had met in 1953. It thanked Darlaine for her ‘generous cooperation and employment of  . . . [her] valuable time when Mr. Mosley [sic] visited you during his recent assignment to your region.’ The fourth went to someone in the inner circle of Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York —probably Isabel Davis, Ted Bloecher, or Lex Mebane. One more was addressed to a semi-leading light in The Field whom I no longer recall. The sixth on National War College letterhead, was addressed to my father, a retired U.S. Army general. It objected to his having indulged in extreme right-wing political activities while on a military pension, strongly implying he might lose the latter if he did not refrain from the former. The seventh was the Straith letter… ”

Prank of Hoax?

The FBI even got involved trying to track down the origin of the bogus letters, nevertheless, Adamski kept claiming the letter was genuine. When asked about how the impact and how story changed over the years, Moseley replied:

“It didn’t really evolve. It was just etched in stone. It was hilarious. People would write or telephone the State Department and ask for R. E. Straith. And the State Dept. fed into the legend, stupidly, without realizing it. They always gave a different answer. ‘R.E. Straith was not available’ or ‘he was on a different assignment’ or ‘he didn’t exist.’ If they sent something by mail, it was sent back ‘refused – person not known’ or not sent back at all. There was no consistency in how they handled it and that fed the fire and kept it going.” (Shavertron, 2009)

The letters were a drunken prank by Moseley and Barker, and they don’t appear to have fooled anyone for long, even George Adamski. But, in Adamski’s hands, he was able to use the letter as a prop to bolster his tales of being an ambassador to Venus. It was this use that elevates the “Straith Letter” to the status of a hoax!

The Last Letter Surfaces

Back when he was a lad, Tim Brigham became friends with Jim Moseley, going on to publish a zine, the Devil’s Advocate where he interviewed the Supreme Commander in 1995.

Defying all odds, Tim went on to become, valuable member of society,  Timothy Brigham, Ph.D. , Cognitive- Experimental Psychologist, and Assistant Professor of Psychology!

Interview: James Moseley  Saucer Smear “Commander” and Publisher

(Excerpts from Wake Up Down There! The Excluded Middle Collection )

copyright Gregory Bishop 1994

Jim Moseley don’t take no guff. That is, he won’t take it if it’s not interesting or at the very least, entertaining. The publisher of Saucer Smear has been in the UFO field (by his own admission) since 1948. Although he would be embarassd to admit it, this makes him one of the few “grand gentlemen” of Ufology (or You-fool-ogy as he might call it.)

Saucer Smear is mailed out gratis on an irregular basis to a couple hundred of the ufological hard-core, and comprises the only record of the evolving personality of the saucer-smitten. Within its eight typewritten pages, researchers lash out at each other in vitriolic rants full of personal insults and very often, four letter expletives, some directed at the editor. Presiding over this fray with a bemused eye, Moseley praises friends, points a good-natured but sharp and sarcastic pen at attackers, and referees intense insider squabbles with alacrity and an eye for raking the muck when needed.

Q: What first interested you in the UFO field?

A: It was in the early ’50s. The first thing I paid any attention to was the Mantell case in 1948-a military fellow who allegedly got blown out of the sky by a UFO. It was a popular subject suddenly, and became an emerging field of research. I had this intellectual curiosity about something which seemed to be real and interesting. I met a writer who wrote for True and Argosy and he said that if I would take the time and travel across the country and interview these people who had had UFO experiences, then I would get a co-author credit. And I was young and eager, so in late 1953, I took my car and drove from New York out to the southwest and California and interviewed maybe a hundred people. And I talked to everybody; the contactees, the scientists etc., but the book was never made. The notes I had for that book were later fictionalized by Gray Barker and eventually turned into the horrible book Crash Secrets At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. I had found out by then that there was actually a UFO field, and I met Gray Barker and others who were in it at the time.

So the next thing I did was to start my own zine, which was called Nexus, which was a stupid name, it means “a connecting link,” but nobody knows that. Two other guys started that with me who were also living in New York at the time; Dominic Luchesi and August Roberts. August died last month, and Luchesi died several years ago. We started this and kept it going for a year, and then they dropped out and I changed the name to Saucer News and it stayed on a very small scale until 1954 when the “marsh gas” thing happened.

That marsh gas thing did more for me than anything else–(J. Allen)Hynek’s marsh gas–he went to Michigan where there had been a few sightings of things. The most prominent ones were by some college co-eds. One thing was seen diving at a police car, and another was seen floating over some woods near a college dormitory. There were no marshes in that whole area. There was a premature press conference and Hynek was forced to do it. He didn’t have an answer and didn’t claim to have and answer. The Air Force put him on the spot rather unfairly. I ended up being very friendly with Hynek, and I liked him. So he was pushed to the wall and said that it might or could have been marsh gas. And then there were the T-shirts and cartoons, etc. just ridiculing him.

The whole country was excited about it then, and then Michagan Representative Gerald Ford got on it and promised a congresional investigation, which of course never happened, but it was a hot time for the topic. It was the biggest “flap” of its sort as far as public interest was concerned, and because of that, my circulation shot up literally overnight. I had this little one-room office in downtown New York where I worked all by myself hacking out this magazine, and was listed in the Manhattan phone book under “Saucer News.” So when they wanted to talk to a local “authority”, they called me, and I didn’t know any more about the subject than the day before. But I was hot. I was on every news program in New York, since there were not a lot of other rivals around like there is now.

Q: What year was all this?

A: 1964. At this time there was a man in Boston with a radio and T.V. show named Bob Kennedy (not THE Bob Kennedy of course.) I appeared on his show a few times, and they were also working with speaker’s bureau who booked Donald Keyhoe to speak about the saucer stuff. They also booked the college lecture circuit and Keyhoe was starting to charge too much. This is where I really stepped in some shit. Bob Kennedy gave my name to this bureau and since I hated Keyhoe anyway, this was the best luck of all. He was charging too much, so I started getting his gigs. I would have gone for free just to knock Keyhoe off the lecture circuit. (Stanton) Friedman hadn’t come along yet, and he didn’t push me off the circuit ’till years later. I did over a hundred colleges and got well paid for it for the time. Saucer News circulation shot up to about 10,000 for awhile, and I got on all kinds of shows, etc. I finally had to hire a staff to keep up, including Tim Beckley, who worked there for a couple of years. This was all because of the marsh gas! Then in the early ’70s, Friedman came along and did to me what I had done to Keyhoe. Actually, he was vicious about it. He would find out which colleges I was lecturing at and call them up and try to get them to knock me off and book him. He had the degree and the beard and I didn’t. The colleges kept calling me to inform me what he had been doing–sometimes more than once to the same places.

Q: What are some differences between the UFO scene now and how it was in the “early days?”

A: Well, in the ’50s you had your classic contactees who met creatures who looked almost like us, if not better, and who were giving messages of sweetness and light, and save the environment and ban the bomb, and all this good stuff. But nobody sees anyone like that anymore in the last 20 years or so. Another thing was that they used to see little men getting out of the saucers, smaller than us, but sort of normal-looking. They were not described in the same way that these “greys” are–the height is the same, but the face is different. So, how come nobody sees these classic “little men” anymore?

Q: You perpetrated one of the most famous hoaxes in UFO history at the expense of George Adamski. How did that come about?

A: Gray Barker had a friend who’s still alive now and begged me never to reveal his name, but at the time was a kid of 18 or 20, who’s father was rather high in the State Department. He wandered into his father’s office and stole some official State Department stationery, about six or seven different kinds. So, one night Barker and I got together at his place in Clarksburg, West Virginia and wrote six or seven different letters to people in the field. And the Straith letter was so-called because it was signed by R.E. Straith of the “Cultural Affairs Committee” of the State Department, and we deliberately made that part up because it didn’t exist. There was a committee with a similar name, but Straith did not exist. We opened the letter “Dear Professor Adamski,” which was flattering him because he wasn’t a professor at all, he just made that up. And it said was in essence that “there are some of us here that know of your contacts and we are behind you all the way, but we cannot come out publicly to support you at this time. But rest assured that we are behind you in spirit” etc. That was the gist of the letter, and whether Adamski thought it was a hoax or not didn’t really matter, since it was just what he wanted to hear. So he publicized it and after a few months the FBI came to him and told him to stop it. They told him it was a hoax and to stop saying that it was genuine. This was just what he needed, and he started crowing that the FBI had harassed him, and so that meant it had to be genuine. There were then two investigations by the FBI and the State Department. They went down and talked to Barker, since someone noticed that the typing on this letter was just like the ones he sent to all kinds of people. Barker got very paranoid after this and took the typewriter and broke it into many little pieces. Then he found where they were building a wall somewhere in Clarksburg, and dumped the pieces in. So, to this day that typewriter is buried in a wall somewhere in that town. Then Barker died in 1984, and I had warned him that if I outlasted him, I was going to confess, so I wouldn’t embarass him anymore. So, after he died I put it in the next issue of Saucer Smear.

Q: Could you talk about your friendship with Gray Barker?

A: I think he was probably my best friend and used me as a sort of psychiatrist really. What’s not generally known was that he was gay and died of AIDS. But in 1984 in Clarksburg, West Virginia, they didn’t know that much about it, and they didn’t cover it up, they just didn’t recognize the symptoms. I’ve lived in Key West for ten years and I know a number of people who have died of AIDS and so I suspected at the time that’s what he had died of.

He had wonderful sense of humor, and a sense of wonderment (which is a good word for him) about the UFO subject. He stopped being a “believer” very early on, but kept the sense of wonderment. What he got out of it was entertainment for himself, and the audience he wrote for. He thought of himself as an entertainer, not as a scientist or a person dealing in facts. There were “New Age” types long before there was a UFO field, and he knew this audience and what they wanted to hear, so he wrote books and published them as a book business. He also had a theater that he owned and operated, and he started out as a booking agent for films at theaters in the area. So, he was always in the entertainment field and thought of himself as an entertainer. He thought I was too serious, because I believed some of it, and still do, but he didn’t believe any of it.

He wrote a poem that I have here with me, which is entitled “UFO Is A Bucket Of Shit,” and I think that really summed up his feeling about the whole thing. He also wrote serious poetry. I would go down there a few times a year from New York, and we’d drink and bullshit and do hoaxes or whatever. He drank quite a lot, and didn’t like to travel, because he would get very disoriented. I went to the Giant Rock convention in 1970 with him and a girlfriend of mine. There were a lot of psychedelic drugs floating around the Rock that year…

Here’s “UFO Is A Bucket Of Shit”:

UFO is a bucket of shit

Its followers: perverts, monomaniacs, dipsomaniacs
Artists of the fast buck
True believers, objective believers, new age believers
Keyhoe believers

Shushed by the three men
Or masturbated by space men

UFO is a bucket of shit

The A.F. investigated UFOs
And issued a report
Couched in polite language
Which translated, means:

“UFO is a bucket of shit”

Meade Layne is a bucket of shit
Lex Mebane is a bucket of shit
James W. Moseley is a bucket of shit
Richard Ogden is a bucket of shit
Ray Palmer is a bucket of shit

And I sit here writing
While the shit drips down my face
In great rivulets

Yes, they don’t write poems like that anymore, do they? Thank God! So there you have it, a little sample of Gray Barker’s poetry.

Q: You’re obviously more interested in the people surrounding the UFO phenomenon, than in the UFOs themselves. Can you explain why?

A: There’s no hope of solving the question. There’s endless confusion and contradictory theories, so certainly the UFO field is real, whether the saucers are or not, and the people are real, and some of them are very interesting. I have more fun with the people, so I talk about personalities in my magazine. I don’t print sightings, because everybody else does, or could, and you can find that anywhere. I just try to do something more interesting and more to my own personal taste.

Q: How much does the government pay you to keep all the UFO nuts fighting with each other?

A: They pay me exactly as much as they pay Phil Klass.

Q: Have you ever actually seen anything that you would qualify as unidentified?

A: In the course of 40 years I have seen a few things that I could not identify. The last one was in Gulf Breeze, in 1992. It was a light in the sky that was there for about four minutes. It might have been a flare, but I’m still not sure. Yeah, I’ve seen stuff that I couldn’t identify, but so what? (laughs)

Q: How have your views of the UFO phenomenon changed over the years?

A: I went off on different tangents: first the secret weapon theory, then little men, then I got hung up on Mars for awhile–it seemed reasonable–what got me was the lines on the surface of the planet. But the camera can see what the eye can see, and it doesn’t make it any more real. When you get enough resolution of course, that stuff disappears. Then Vallee and Keel came along, as well as J. Allen Hynek, and put forward the 4-D idea, and that’s where I’m generally at now. The interplanetary idea is the least likely. If there is something going on along those lines, it’s beyond our present understanding. I’m not totally agnostic, I do think there’s something going on, but it defies scientific examination. You have to be able to repeat results experimentally, and how the hell do we investigate something that changes continuously? When we can summon a demon or poltergeist or spaceman at will, then we’ll be much further along. We can’t expect to solve everything overnight. People need answers right away, and if we don’t have answers, they’re invented. MUFON has invented the interplanetary theory, and that satisfies them.

Q: Will you keep Saucer Smear going for as long as you can?

A: As long as I’m alive and reasonably healthy, sure. My business takes hardly any of my time, and I really enjoy it.

 – – – – – – –

The complete interview can be found in:

Thanks, Greg for allowing the interview to be reprinted here, it’s one of the very best.

Check out more of Greg Bishop’s work at:

Greg Bishop at Radio Misterioso

The Excluded Middle website

Saucer News NYC Convention Memories

by Karl Machtanz

I’m sorry to hear about Jim Moseley’s passing. I’d only met the gentleman for a few times. It was Mr Beckley who I first met and he saw my models and introduced me to Mr Moseley, who gave me permission to have my little set of aliens on display in the entrance hall to the convention room. He was extremely interested to hear how I came to build the miniature figures and telling him I just drew what the witnesses said they saw, and after hours of drawing and re-drawing what I thought would be the most realistic looking likenesses, then I began sculpting the figures from balsa wood.

The only camera I had at the time was a Polaroid land camera and my dad was taking photos while I was staying with my diorama giving the people attending the convention the how’s and why’s I created the figures, There were many people taking photos of my exhibit as well as the other items on display along the entrance area but most did not have anyone to explain what they had on display.

I was extremely fortunate to have Roy Thinnes visit my display and had a very interesting conversation with him on Flying Saucers as well as my rendition of the aliens and of course his Invaders show which I was a big fan of and still am.

Unfortunately the only photos I have of the convention are the ones of my figures, as the other photos got lost between all the moves we made from Brooklyn to Long Island and finally to Oregon. One would think photos are readily available of such a first time event in New York City, I’m surprised there are so few.

Thank you for contacting me about Mr Moseley as he was a fine gentleman whom I wish I would have known better, I lost track of Mr Beckley as well, another fine gentleman.

Yours truly

Karl Machtanz