Convention sur les soucoupes volantes à Hollywood
During those last days I was at Lockheed I thought often of Neptune's cryptic words: "The road will open, Orfeo;
walk it as you will," And later when he said: "I smile upon you, Orfeo, for your greatly enhanced numbers."
Then
his last prophetic words, "Strength and courage will be given to the millions who will rise and meet the great battles
ahead with only a faint hope on their side for victory."
It was true, I thought; the road was beginning to open.
New understandings and an ever increasing awareness were coming to me as time passed. Also, as more and more people
learned of my experiences many began to phone, write, or visit at our home, wishing to know more about the space
visitors. We continued the regular meetings at the Los Felix Club House, but as the crowds increased, the Club House
was know longer large enough to accommodate everyone. It was then that Max Miller, President of the Flying Saucers
International, an organizational devoted to the study of flying saucer phenomena, and Jerome Criswell, the well-known
columnist and television Man of Prophecy, suggested that we rent the music room in the famous old Hollywood Hotel for
our weekly meetings. Thus we had been meeting their for several months every Sunday or afternoon. Opinions were
exchanged and lectures on saucer phenomena were presented to enthusiastic audiences.
Paradoxically enough, as the
general public's interest in the saucers increased, the press, radio, television and other news media suddenly and
inexplicably dropped flying saucers from the news. Even the second-rate science fiction writers banished the word from
their lexicon of horrors. Thus the public was left to grope for itself. And surprisingly enough the way was thus
cleared for those individuals who had experienced actual contacts with the extraterrestrials to work freely without
obstruction of erroneous "slanting" by official reporting.
Gerald Heard, Frank Scully and Donald Keyhoe were
familiar names among persons interested in the saucers. These men, along with fate magazine and Ray Palmer, had been
making every effort to awaken the public to the awesome fact that our world might well be under observation by beings
from another planet. But now several unknown men were speaking up and declaring that they had actually had contact
with the saucers and space visitors. Among those were George Van Tassel, Truman Betherum, George Adamski, George
Williamson and Alfred Bailey. Those few newspapers which ran stories on these men did so with the tongue-in-cheek
slant.
Sunday afternoons I was speaking to groups at the Hollywood Hotel. I knew that my audience waited
patiently for clear, concise, accounts of my experiences with extraterrestrials. But they were often disappointed.
Frequently when I stepped upon the platform to speak a strange transition came over me. It was as though another
personality overshadowed me; someone who knew all the answers. But the answers were not in my familiar English or
Italian, but in an unfamiliar, half-remembered tongue. I would struggle to translate the ideas into English and end up
by failing to be clear and direct. Thus with the understanding of the universe almost within my grasp, I was often
helpless to reveal any part of it.
Nevertheless less, even with my many failures to be concise and direct, the
meetings gained momentum with increasing numbers in the audience.
It was then that Max Miller conceived the idea
of a Flying Saucer Convention. It sounded like a tremendous idea to me. With the help of several other persons we
enthusiastically began to formulate plans. It was decide that we should hold the convention at the Hollywood Hotel
where there was plenty of room in the lobby to accommodate a large audience.
Various exhibits of saucer
photographs, space ship models, books, magazines and pamphlets on the saucers were set up around the lobby and many
circulars were mailed out announcing the event. Also invitations to speak at the convention were mailed to all persons
who had been most helpful in revealing and disseminating information about the saucers and extraterrestrials.
But
response to the invitations was very poor. Less than a week before the convention was to open it appeared that none of
the speakers that we had counted upon would be present. Max was greatly worried. "It looks like we're sunk, Orfeo," he
exclaimed dejectedly. "This thing is going to be the prize flop of any and all conventions."
But as I looked at
him, the conviction was suddenly strongly in my mind that everything would come off well. I replied: "Don't worry,
Max. It's going to come off much better than we ever dreamed it would."
My prediction proved entirely correct.
Everyone of the speakers whom we had invited showed up for the convention, and some others besides. Among the invited
speakers were Frank scully, Arthur Luis Joquel II, George Van Tassel, George Adamski, Truman Betherum, John Otto from
Chicago, Harding Walsh and a mysterious Dr. "X" who spoke long and eloquently on the saucers. He left immediately
after speaking and no one ever knew who he really was or where he came from, although many inquired; for he had some
startling things to say.
Almost to a man the speakers said they had received an irresistible urge to attend on
Friday (two days before the opening of the convention). Could it be that the space visitors had been at work in their
subtle way?
At any rate the convention was a tremendous success. For three days and nights the crowds overflowed
the Hollywood Hotel out onto the lawns and adjacent Hollywood Boulevard. In fact the response was so tremendous that
on the second morning I requested Max to stop all publicity on the convention. Some of the larger Los Angeles
newspapers covered the convention. But all news stories were of the tongue-in-cheek type. A few of the smaller, more
rabid papers tried to "expose" it as nothing but a promotional "money-making" scheme.
The convention was a hectic
one. I was busy night and day and carried on practically without sleep. When I wasn't speaking, people were
surrounding me and bombarding me with endless questions. Many were speaking at the weekly meetings and the three
nerve-wracking days of the convention, I never once lost my temper. A power beyond my own consciousness or control
carried me through. In trying moments of heckling or confusion an upsurgence of peace and calm would pick me up and
give me strength equal to the occasion.
However, on the last night of the convention, the power that was
sustaining me suddenly failed and I lost my temper for the first time. A lone women who had been especially persistent
in seeking me out and cornering me to revile me and hurl quotes of scripture at me was responsible for the outburst.
She knew I was wrong and she was right. And she had books, diagrams and bible verses to prove it. When at last I
literally blew my top she joyfully picked up her data and departed shouting that my temper proved I was an agent of
the devil. Within an hour I lost my temper several times again.
The most trying experience of the convention
occurred when a large group of materialists were literally "giving me the works" in a stubborn, derisive effort to
"get to the bottom of my story" and ferret out obvious flaws from a "from a common-sense viewpoint.
Sincere,
open-minded, honest persons who are willing to investigate the event of space visitors never resort to such sneering
interrogations. They ask honest, sincere questions on points they fully do not understand. But they have an honest
desire to know, not to discredit, to sneer and to disparage.
This particular group had their minds set upon
"exposing" me. Their methods, although entirely on a mental plane, would make the medieval inquisitions seem
innocuous. Like little demons they parroted elementary physics and could see practical, intelligent action only behind
the Iron Curtain. They knew that I was a cheap publicity seeker who did not hesitate to lie about space visitors or
anything else to further my own ends. No words of explanation could possibly prove anything to them they did not wish
to believe.
I had undergone just as bitter and insinuating criticism before, but I was exceptionally tired that
last night. I felt almost though I were melting away before venomous onslaught, collapsing at the seams, as it were,
and suddenly I felt very, very human and down to earth. I was on the verge of exploding in anger again when a kind of
veil was drawn over my conscious mind. The gesticulating figures before me faded to babbling, inconsequential shadows.
As they continued their violent attacks, my thoughts drifted calmly back to a scene of a few weeks before. I was
attending a convention of science fiction writers at the Hotel Commodore on Los Angeles. Since my experiences with the
extraterrestrials, I have become interested in the field of science-fiction, for I have found that many scientific
truths are adumbrated, or delineated, in science-fiction before ever they become realties of our own world.
Many
well known writers in the science-fiction field were present. When I came in they were holding open discussions of
trends in the science-fiction, the various new markets, etc.
One of the audience asked: "Why have all science
fiction writers suddenly stopped writing or even mentioning flying saucers?"
A speaker replied authoritatively
that the subject had become taboo with them.
Another member of the audience demanded to know why this was so
since the saucers had actually given such an impetus to the science-fiction field.
The speaker had no adequate
answer for that one, but lamely explained that the saucers were "old stuff" now.
I was becoming impatient with
the proceedings and was on the point of leaving when the guest speaker of the evening was announced. He was Mr. Gerald
Heard, the well-known science-fiction writer and author of IS ANOTHER WORLD WATCHING?
Mr. heard spoke with great
eloquence and a deep, penetrating philosophy. He berated the writers for turning out material of an inferior grade and
warned that the public would not continue to "stomach it", much less to buy it. Many of them squirmed uncomfortably in
their seats.
As he neared the end of his stimulating and thought-provoking talk, his eyes met mine where I was
seated near the back with two companions. I noticed that he seemed tired and shaken.
As our eyes met and held a
kind of mutual understanding passed between us in ever widening circles. Dimly, I could hear him terminating his
speech with these words: There is one in this room tonight--I do not know he is, but he's going to upset the whole
apple cart." He paused, then his voice reverberated as he added: "He is the Awakener--he has not yet appeared, but he
well may be here in this room tonight. Thank you."
And the mystic wheels between us set in motion by the
controlled magnetic vortices slowly receded and vanished.
I looked about the room at the audience, but they were
no longer listening to him. Some were whispering and laughing among themselves.
As I looked about that busy room
I thought that it was small wonder that the concoctors of science-fiction horror diets had declared the saucers
"taboo". Far too much beautiful reality was on the side of the saucers. Harmony and beauty are much too tame for the
horror boys. They have joined forces with the materialists, subversives and egotists to fight the "flying saucer
sensationalists" down at every turn.
But the joke is on them, for reality slipped quietly past them and
established new frontiers of its own. The science-fictioneers were induced by subtle forces to ignore flying saucers
as were many other materialistic sources of information. During the welcome lull the actual flying saucer phenomena
and the extra-terrestrials were left to the inexperienced but honest handling of rank amateurs. At first these men
were inept and inarticulate, but they are finding their voices and their numbers rapidly increasing. The space
visitors had actually only cleared the atmosphere for them. Had the professional spinners of horror-fiction stuck to
the theme of flying saucers, the true contacts could never have been able to perform their missions.