Friday, August 3, 2018

Paperback 1032: Behind the Flying Saucer Mystery / George Adamski (Paperback Library 53-439)

Paperback 1032: Paperback Library 53-439 (1st ptg, 1967)

Title: Behind the Flying Saucer Mystery
Author: George Adamski
Cover artist: what is this cover, anyway?

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $8-12

PapLib 53-439
Best things about this cover:

  • What am I even looking at?
  • Feathers?
  • Wood shavings?
  • Arrow heads?
  • How 'bout you "rip the curtain of secrecy" from whatever this picture is?
  • And the little white streaks? Is this supposed to be a Rorschach-type dealie where I basically ascribe meaning based on my paranoid imagination? What if I'm just bored?

PapLib53-439bc
Best things about this back cover:

  • The QAn*n folks have nothing on this guy
  • "Since that fateful day in 1952 when he first lost his fucking mind, George Adamski became a known lunatic who somehow got a book contract"
  • "Men" LOL
  • The Brothers!
  • The Silence Group, Can I Join Please Shhhhhhhhh.... No Talking Ever
  • "Revolutionary" and "new" are both angry at being dragged into the whole "twelve-planet solar system" conversation
  • Jeez louise, this isn't his first UFO conspiracy theory book!?

Page 123~
... for he [Patrick Moore] had been one of the British astronomers, along with Dr. H. Percy Wilkins, who had confirmed the existence of the Mare Crisium bridge on the moon. He must have known for certain that someone had been using the moon as a base of operations, and the only logical ones were people from other planets.
Yes, that does sound like logic. Also, the idea of the Mare Crisium as the site of a lunar colony appears in Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, also from 1967, though I am sure that is a total coincidence, because no way George Adamski is getting his totally scientific ideas from fiction, no way, and if you don't believe me then you're probably part of the Silence Group. You Silence Groupies never quit.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

2 comments:

DemetriosX said...

You've never heard of Adamski? He was probably the father or maybe the grandfather of most of the UFO idiocy of the 60s and 70s. You can draw a straight line from him to the sort of people who used to be on Art Bell. Check out his Wikipedia page.

If there was any cross-pollination between Adamski and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, then it was from Adamski to Heinlein, not the other way around. Adamski died in 1965 and the original version of this book was published in 1961.

As for the cover, your guess is as good as mine. Some sort of extreme closeup photo, which was a popular thing in the late 60s. The white streaks look like water droplets on glass, but the pointy things are a mystery.

capewood said...

I think I like the original title better.