FLYING SAUCERS Over Los Angeles;
The UFO Craze of the 50's
Dewayne B. Johnson and Kenn Thomas
Adventures Unlimited Press 1998
Today in the UFO press, most of the books written by UFO proponents deal in just a few areas. Abductions, of course, have been the mainstay in UFO literature for about 10 years. The next type of UFO book that is wildly popular in some corners is the "conspiracy oriented" book. These can range from "the government is in co-hoots with" and you name it. Grey aliens, the Masons, Illuminati, the Bilderbergers, Tri-lateralists, and Satanists to name a few. (We do not mean to slight the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts of America and will include them in our next review as soon as they get mentioned as being in league with the evil shadow government.) The next type of book gaining in popularity is the "secret technology" book which explains how the UFO "problem" has always been explainable because it is actually a result of secret technology that either (take your pick) Tesla invented, or Nazi German Scientists invented, or the U. S. Government invented (or perhaps copied and then adapted from a crashed disc at Roswell, or Aztec, or...name your favorite crash site.) And I would be vastly remiss if I did not mention the other type of book that has been hugely popular since the 1950's, the contactee (and today called newage) type of book. These are the ones that are purportedly 'channeled" to contactee's with millions of pages worth of advice from the "Space Brothers". Of course in all those millions of pages of "advice" from our Space Brothers, not even one good "leap of technology" is offered on how to make a better mouse trap (or take your pick, a cleaner gasoline engine, cure for cancer or
a better "sun block creme".)
What we have been missing for many, many years is a good history on this subject in an attempt to try to get a handle on not only where this field is heading, but where it has been. "FLYING SAUCERS Over Los Angeles" changed that. FSOLA began as a dissertation on flying saucers by Dewayne B. Johnson for the University of California at Los Angeles, in the 1950's. Filled with first person accounts and obscure witnesses, this book takes you back to the dawn of the modern UFO age in detail not seen since the Keyhoe books of the 50's and 60's.
The majority of this book examines the American Southwest including the Los Angeles area, with eye to detail that up to now has been lost to history. Johnson examines (from his 1950's
perspective) everything from Nazi saucer lore, correspondence with Willy Ley, a founder of the German Rocket Society, to accounts of Roswell. The Roswell information gives lie to the "facts" that Roswell was largely forgotten until the very late 1970's, early 80's. He even includes an account from one "Ray L. Dimmick" an explosives salesman, who claimed to have seen a creature that today could easily "pass" for a Roswell "Grey", under wreckage in Mexico. Media pressure caused Mr. Dimmick to back off and then recant. When Johnson found Dimmick however, Dimmick told Johnson that "I can't talk. The story was distorted a lot in the newspapers, I have no comment now."
The saucers are here to stay. They have been here for many decades and as much as it pains me to say it, we really and truly can not say with certainty today, any more than we could in 1947, or even 1957 what they are. I recommend this book highly as a primer in the early days of the field to give a sense of what people were seeing, reporting, and theorizing on in the 50's. The same types of excuses as today, were being used then to explain UFOs away, they same type of contactee's were passing along messages from the space brothers and the same ad hominen attacks were used on folks that reported sighting these unusal objects. Perhaps it is true that the more things change, the more they stay the same but "FLYING SAUCERS Over Los Angeless" is well worth the time to read it.
Reviewed by:
Don Ecker
The UFO Craze of the 50's
Dewayne B. Johnson and Kenn Thomas
Adventures Unlimited Press 1998
Today in the UFO press, most of the books written by UFO proponents deal in just a few areas. Abductions, of course, have been the mainstay in UFO literature for about 10 years. The next type of UFO book that is wildly popular in some corners is the "conspiracy oriented" book. These can range from "the government is in co-hoots with" and you name it. Grey aliens, the Masons, Illuminati, the Bilderbergers, Tri-lateralists, and Satanists to name a few. (We do not mean to slight the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts of America and will include them in our next review as soon as they get mentioned as being in league with the evil shadow government.) The next type of book gaining in popularity is the "secret technology" book which explains how the UFO "problem" has always been explainable because it is actually a result of secret technology that either (take your pick) Tesla invented, or Nazi German Scientists invented, or the U. S. Government invented (or perhaps copied and then adapted from a crashed disc at Roswell, or Aztec, or...name your favorite crash site.) And I would be vastly remiss if I did not mention the other type of book that has been hugely popular since the 1950's, the contactee (and today called newage) type of book. These are the ones that are purportedly 'channeled" to contactee's with millions of pages worth of advice from the "Space Brothers". Of course in all those millions of pages of "advice" from our Space Brothers, not even one good "leap of technology" is offered on how to make a better mouse trap (or take your pick, a cleaner gasoline engine, cure for cancer or
a better "sun block creme".)
What we have been missing for many, many years is a good history on this subject in an attempt to try to get a handle on not only where this field is heading, but where it has been. "FLYING SAUCERS Over Los Angeles" changed that. FSOLA began as a dissertation on flying saucers by Dewayne B. Johnson for the University of California at Los Angeles, in the 1950's. Filled with first person accounts and obscure witnesses, this book takes you back to the dawn of the modern UFO age in detail not seen since the Keyhoe books of the 50's and 60's.
The majority of this book examines the American Southwest including the Los Angeles area, with eye to detail that up to now has been lost to history. Johnson examines (from his 1950's
perspective) everything from Nazi saucer lore, correspondence with Willy Ley, a founder of the German Rocket Society, to accounts of Roswell. The Roswell information gives lie to the "facts" that Roswell was largely forgotten until the very late 1970's, early 80's. He even includes an account from one "Ray L. Dimmick" an explosives salesman, who claimed to have seen a creature that today could easily "pass" for a Roswell "Grey", under wreckage in Mexico. Media pressure caused Mr. Dimmick to back off and then recant. When Johnson found Dimmick however, Dimmick told Johnson that "I can't talk. The story was distorted a lot in the newspapers, I have no comment now."
The saucers are here to stay. They have been here for many decades and as much as it pains me to say it, we really and truly can not say with certainty today, any more than we could in 1947, or even 1957 what they are. I recommend this book highly as a primer in the early days of the field to give a sense of what people were seeing, reporting, and theorizing on in the 50's. The same types of excuses as today, were being used then to explain UFOs away, they same type of contactee's were passing along messages from the space brothers and the same ad hominen attacks were used on folks that reported sighting these unusal objects. Perhaps it is true that the more things change, the more they stay the same but "FLYING SAUCERS Over Los Angeless" is well worth the time to read it.
Reviewed by:
Don Ecker