# Why the European & Japanese fandom of George Adamski? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 16, 2010, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-european-japanese-fandom-of-george-adamski/539601 "2010-05-16T02:08:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-european-japanese-fandom-of-george-adamski/539601/1 "2010-05-16T02:08:13Z")
George Adamski, the Polish-born uber-Contactee of the 1950’s, is usually considered an embarrassment to U.S. Ufologists, except maybe among the New Age devotees among them. However, when I went to look up YouTubes about him, most of them seem European in origin. Similarly, when the present owners bought the Palomar Gardens campsite where Adamski ran a diner, they were surprised to see a busload of Japanese tourists arrive & was told “Those are the Adamski people”. Since then, they researched him & are devoting some time to his fan-base. So why is it that this 1950’s-era curiosity seems to have a bigger following in the more secular, rational, scientific societies of Europe & Japan, than in the good old USA- as religion-addled as we are? ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-european-japanese-fandom-of-george-adamski/539601/2 "2010-05-17T12:37:54Z")
I remember finding him quite interesting when I was a teen, although not really believing him. The last nail in the coffin about his credulity was reading about [this photo](http://www.eyepod.org/images/ufo_george_adamski_1_.gif) being identified as an old gas street light. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-european-japanese-fandom-of-george-adamski/539601/3 "2010-05-17T12:46:15Z")
> [@Floater](#): > > I remember finding him quite interesting when I was a teen, although not really believing him. The last nail in the coffin about his credulity was reading about [this photo](http://www.eyepod.org/images/ufo_george_adamski_1_.gif) being identified as an old gas street light. See, I always heard it was part of a chicken brooder. Btw, interesting page with some film footage taken by ol’ George. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-european-japanese-fandom-of-george-adamski/539601/4 "2010-05-17T16:44:19Z")
Well, I’m British and rather a sceptic, meaning that I read about UFOs and the like sometimes too. And I’ve never heard of him. If the youtube links were mostly European, and he’s Polish-born, were they maybe Polish? Or maybe just one or two odd people? I assume you watched them, so you know they’re not about the singer Adamski. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-european-japanese-fandom-of-george-adamski/539601/5 "2010-05-18T23:15:52Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > Well, I’m British and rather a sceptic, meaning that I read about UFOs and the like sometimes too. And I’ve never heard of him. This is more to do with Adamski fading from the popular imagination than his prominence in the field in his own time. As you know, I’m also British and a couple of years older, but I’m not certain I’ve ever seen him mentioned as a current reference by anyone in my lifetime either. But people discussing the history of UFOs, in either the US or Britain, in any detail do invariably single him out as important. Thus, for example, writing in his _Can You Speak Venusian?_ in 1972, Patrick Moore could say: > [@](#): > > Of all the Independent Thinkers of modern times, none has caused more controversy than Dr Immanuel Velikovsky. His only possible rival is Mr George Adamski, of whom more anon. “Independent Thinker” is, of course, Moore’s polite term for crank. For that matter, Velikovsky has essentially long since faded entirely from popular view as a recognisable name as well. Moore even interviewed Adamski for _Panorama_. (For non-Brits, this was the BBC’s main weekly current affairs TV programme of the time.) There was also a specifically British angle to the whole Adamski story: his co-author [Desmond Leslie](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/desmond-leslie-728888.html) was British. However, it’s possible that he is more remembered, though not by name, as the person who attacked Bernard Levin during a live episode of _That Was The Week That Was_. Leslie was taking exception to a review Levin had written about his wife’s singing career.