Oh, Tin-enbaum!

Nov. 24, 1960: Yes, the aluminum Christmas tree is back again, in all its shimmering majesty, at Sears! The 7-foot tree with 153 branches cost $178.73 in 2009 dollars. ALSO Aluminum Christmas trees on the Daily Mirror RIP Garth Gimble

Matt Weinstock, Nov. 23, 1960

Nov. 23, 1960: Joseph J. Cracchiolo traces a flaming object in the sky and watches it land in the 1200 block of West 120th Street. The space object turned out to be a plastic dry-cleaning bag, "with bamboo struts rigged at the open end to hold a candle," Matt Weinstock says. Also noted: A caretaker at Silver Lake Reservoir is firing shots at sea gulls -- but only to scare them. DEAR ABBY: Why did you tell that woman she shouldn't shake her dust mop out the window?

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.”

Matt Weinstock, Aug. 2, 1960

A  cargo of stolen Caltechium?

Aug. 2, 1960: What do you suppose is in Caltechium? Matt Weinstock looks at one family’s problems in having a swimming pool.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, June 28, 1960

June 28, 1960: Former hotel clerk Otis T. Carr has a plan to send a man to the moon and back – and Paul Coates has the story.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, June 22, 1960

June 22, 1960: In case you missed it, Earth was invaded by spacemen on Dec. 6, 1957, and Paul Coates has the story. And the Mirror has added what must be one of the most forgettable slogans in the newspaper business: Edited to Merit Your Respect.

From the Vaults: 'First Spaceship on Venus' (1960)

Well, "First Spaceship on Venus" is quite the odd little movie: a vintage space epic filmed in East Germany and co-produced with Poland. It features an international team of characters and a strong anti-nuclear message! Released in German as "Der schweigende Stern" ("The Silent Star," based on a book of the same name by "Solaris" author Stanislaw Lem), it came out in the U.S. two years later dubbed into English and heavily cut. But even in this very imperfect form, the film has an eerie beauty.

And actually, I watched it in an even more imperfect form -- I have to confess I watched the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" episode featuring this movie. Please don't all throw rocks at me! I'm going on vacation this week and I just ran out of time. If it helps, I really don't think "First Spaceship" deserves to be an MST3K movie. It just isn't bad enough.

The plot concerns a mysterious meteorite that proves to contain an alien message of some sort. Scientists can't decipher it but are able to determine that it came from Venus. Radio messages to the planet go unanswered, so this can-do Iron Curtain society sends a ship to find out what's happening on Venus. The whole world (represented by a varied crowd and a friendly, presumably state-run media) watches and cheers as their beautiful, candelabra-like vessel takes off: clearly, this future world is a harmonious place.

Things continue in this pre-"Star Trek" vein aboard the ship, as the international team copes with zero gravity  and dodges meteor showers. German Robert Brinkmann (Gunther Simon) reminisces about an old romance with fetching Japanese doctor Sumiko Ogimura (Yoko Tani).

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, March 19, 1960

Mash Notes and Comment     (Press Release)  "John Mason Brown is a conversationalist critic whose verbal outpourings since birth have never ceased  to be witty and original, as well as readily and steadily forthcoming . . . " (Signed) Esquire Magazine, New York city.     --Like the day he was born he had them in stitches when he turned to the nurse and said, "Hurry up with that umbilical cord, Honey.  I want to contemplate my navel."     ::     (Press Release) "Reinhold Schmidt, the Bakersfield grain buyer who reports he recently flew to the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, Egypt, in a space craft from the planet Saturn, will be in Los Angeles Thursday night March 24,  to tell the public about his experiences in a  lecture sponsored by the Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America.     "The widely known speaker, who made nationwide news with his first extra-terrestrial contact near Kearney, Neb., in November of 1957, will speak at 8 p.m., in Severance Hall, 940 S Figueroa St.

Matt Weinstock, Feb. 11, 1960

A Visit From Ptex     After an absence of several years, Tex, or as he prefers to spell it, Ptex, dropped in the other day to say hello.  He brought with him, as he usually does, a great idea.     "They're always giving these big banquets for political and civic leaders," he said, "how about a testimonial dinner for me?  I think I deserve one.  I'm the only real complete failure in the world."     Ptex, a huge, jovial gentleman with a gray goatee, didn't come by this distinction without considerable strain.  He has been everywhere, done everything.  He has worked on newspapers, taught school, promoted weird schemes, advised men in high places, helped plot revolutions and, he admits frankly, washed dishes professionally and recently.     Now at last, he said, he wants to do something big.  With the money he would get from the testimonial dinner, say $3,000 or $4,000, he would charter a "cotton picking yacht" at Balboa and run a cruise for 30 or 40 interested persons through the Panama Canal to Yucatan.  He figures $1,000 each would be about right.  And he has his mate's papers, you know.      "YUCATAN," he sighed dreamily, "that's the place!"  There's a house in the town of Progresso, on the Mexican coast, he said, that could be used as a base for trips to the Mayan ruins.  He would, of course, act as guide for the persons fortunate enough to make the trip.      Meanwhile, I asked, how are things?     Well sir, he'd just been over to the blood bank and picked up $4.  He pulled up his sleeves to show the bit of gauze Scotch-taped to the inside of the bend in his arm.  And he was eating, not good but all right, at the missions.     And after the $4 was gone?     "If I can't make it on four bucks," he said confidently, "I can't make it!"     ::     YESTERDAY a dispatch from Moscow reported that M. Agrest, Soviet scientist, was claiming that visitors from outer space landed in the Libyan Desert at least 1 million years ago and, failing to convey their wisdom to the stupid earth people, blew up the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with their excess nuclear fuel before blasting off.     Tonight Reinhold Schmidt, Bakersfield grain buyer, is scheduled to speak in Pasadena on "My Recent Trips in Spacecraft" if, a press release states, "he returns in time from a flight to the Great Pyramid of Gizeh in Egypt,"  Underneath which, he claims that his friends on Saturn have told him, an ancient space shift is buried.     A skeptical photog placed these two items on my typewriter with a plaintive note, "Tell me it's so -- I want to believe."  I have recommended to his boss that he be taken off the Finch trial.  Obviously he has been there too long and his imagination's gone. ::     TO ALL THE people who turned and laughed at seeing three station wagons loaded with youngsters, skis, toboggans, WHEEL CHAIRS and CRUTCHES on San Berdoo Freeway the other day, let Kay Wannell explain.  They were cerebral palsy youngsters who can hardly stand, going to the mountains to enjoy the snow . . . Speaking of which, singer Johnny O'Keefe, here from Australia to record for Liberty, was asked what he'd like to see.  Disneyland?  Nope.  Snow.  There isn't any in Sydney.  He was taken to Big Bear. ::     CENT-ENARIAN He lived to be     one hundred five. Just why he didn't know. I'll tell you why he     stayed alive- He stashed away his dough.         JOSEPH P. KRENGEL ::     AT RANDOM -- How ironical can things get?  At the time fire swept through his apparel plant at 825 S Los Angeles St., Sunday, causing $25,000 damage, owner A.Blum was at home trying to fire up his barbecue.  He had trouble getting it lit . . . Mrs. Clinton Tompkins blinked as she passed an El Monte market that gives trading stamps.  A letter had been deleted from a  sign so that it seemed to offer "Blue Hip."  Probably a cut of meat from the blue hippopotami which have been known to roam the saloons.

Matt Weinstock, Oct. 5, 1959

Oct. 5, 1959: UFOs, downtown bars and the greatest invention of all time.

Coming Attractions -- Mexican Science Fiction Films

Regular Daily Mirror reader Mary Mallory notes that former Mystery Movie Star Ana Bertha Lepe, left, will be featured in "La Nave de los Monstruos" ("The Monsters' Ship") at 7:30 p.m. on Friday at the Hammer Museum. The plot summary: "The last man on Venus has died. Beta and Gamma, two Venusian women, have been sent on an intergalactic mission to collect bizarre male specimens from throughout space. And a monstrous collection they are too, all scales and fangs and exposed brains." Co-hit: "Santo vs. the Martian Invasion." Admission is free. Read more>>>

U.S. to Accept Division of South Vietnam; Airport Proposed at Anaheim Stadium

NASA says a manned trip to Mars could be possible by 1981 ... Dist. Atty. Edmund Dinis wants an inquest into the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, who drowned when Sen. Edward Kennedy's car went off a narrow bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass. Other authorities have said the case was closed ... and the Nixon administration is ready to accept the division of South Vietnam as part of the price for settling the Vietnam war.

The Angels hoped a plan to build a runway in the Anaheim Stadium parking lot never got off the ground. The proposal surfaced at a meeting between Angels officials and city administrators. According to a story in The Times, the project would include a passenger terminal and possible facilities for air freight. Needless to say, the Angels didn't like the idea of flights coming and going while they were trying to play baseball. The Angels were the primary tenants of the ballpark but weren't exactly making millions in 1969. The air plan certainly would bring in more revenue to the city. Who cares if you couldn't watch the game because you were too busy worrying about the traffic patterns above your seat. Safety was one worry but parking was another. City officials estimated about 2,000 spaces would be lost if the runway was built. The Angels were guaranteed 12,000 spaces on game days --Keith Thursby