Flying Saucers Over L.A.

Aug. 2, 1960: Oh they didn’t really do that, did they? Yes, they did.   Aug. 1, 1960: Only a portion of a front-page story about UFOs was saved in the microfilmed edition of The Times.  Aug. 9, 1960: A reader tries to explain a flying saucer sighting.

In August 1960, The Times was full of stories about flying saucers – even the Army and Air Force were building them! An incident evidently occurred somewhere near Malibu that made the front page of the Aug. 1 paper, but only the runover was preserved in the microfilmed edition and there’s nothing in the Mirror.  The Times editorial page attributed the purported sighting to the “midsummer norm of semi-abnormality.“ A few days later, Jack Smith wrote about Gabriel Green, a “35-year-old bachelor from Whittier” who was running for president “on the flying saucer ticket.” Translation: crackpot. Interestingly enough, someone has uploaded audio of an August 1960 convention of flying saucer enthusiasts held at the Shrine Auditorium. The Times didn’t cover this event, so it’s difficult to precisely date it. Here’s audio of Gabriel Green explaining his political platform. And here is an interview with a fellow who called himself Prince Niasan, who said he was from another planet and had been on Earth since 1927. In 1962, Green ran for U.S. Senate, and he ran for president from the Universal Party in 1972. Green did not receive an obituary in The Times, but the death date of Sept. 8, 2001, reported in online sources, is verified by the Social Security Death Index. Bonus: Suzanne McDermott singing “The Roswell Incident.”

July 11, 1959: The Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America meet at the Statler Hilton.

Comments

[Fibber McGee]

I was motoring down Pacific Coast Highway some years ago, going south toward Santa Monica. All of a sudden the setting sun looked absolutely enormous in the sky. It should have looked like a 25 cent piece but it practically took up the whole sky. It looked like it was as tall as the Empire State Building. I drove for several miles and it didn't change. Then I rounded a corner and it looked normal in size again. I was mighty shook up. Some time later I was told this is a fairly common optical illusion. But it sure looked like the sun or something was going to crash into the earth.