In his obituary of George Adamski, published in Flying Saucer Review, July-August 1965, Desmond Leslie wrote of his old friend: ”Our first contact was so strange. My Flying Saucers Have Landed was being rejected by publisher after publisher when I heard, through Meade Layne, of the first desert contact a week previously. I immediately wrote to George asking if he would let me see, and possibly buy his photos for my book. He replied by sending me the whole remarkable set of pictures with permission to use them without fee. What an extraordinary man, I thought. He takes the most priceless pictures of all time and wants no money for them… I am satisfied that his photographs and early contacts are authentic and will in time be proven so.”
Many books and thousands of articles have been written, both pro and con, about George Adamski. But now, for the first time, his photographs has been digitally enhanced and evaluated by a professional photographer – Rene Erik Olsen from Denmark. He is a painter, photographer and researcher. Olsen documents his investigation in the beautifully illustrated The George Adamski Story – Historical Events of Gigantic Implications. Information about Rene Erik Olsen and the book can also be found at his website. This unique investigation may be the first step forward in making Desmond Leslie´s hope of authenticating the Adamski photographs come true.
Rene Erik Olsen
Olsen is not a ufologist but has been marginally interested in the subject for many years and in the 1990s did some illustrations for the Danish group SUFOI and Adamski co-worker H.C. Petersen. In 2001 Rene contacted Glenn Steckling, director of the Adamski Foundation as he wanted to do a computer animation of George Adamski´s contact experience November 20, 1952. From Steckling he received copies from the original negatives. But other projects engaged Olsen for 16 years until 2017 when he finally decided to make digital enhancements of the Adamski photos. It was then he made a revolutionary discovery. There was much more on these photos than even Adamski himself could have guessed.
Olsen have done enhancements of the three out of four Kodak Brownie photos George Adamski took on November 20, 1952. Also one telescope image from the desert contact, used by Glenn Steckling in his talks. The enhancements are done in Photoshop. The image enhancement process in respect to each Adamski photograph is documented. Olsen remarks that it ”does NOT change or manipulate the actural image (change what is already there in the frame), but does make the image sharper, remove noise, make some areas darker or lighter, make shadows lighter or darker and make highlights darker. These are the same image enhancements/processes I use on every image I take”.
In one of the Kodak Brownie photos the upper left hand and right hand corners of the image is very over-exposed. When enhanced this photo clearly shows the large cylindrical-shaped mothership or carrier craft with three smaller craft in the vicinity.
Many times I have looked at the Brownie photo of the rocky valley in the original edition of Flying Saucers Have Landed. In the background a small dark object is visible which is said to be the scoutship rising. I have always found this photo a bit disappointing and have, like Olsen himself, thought this was just the upper part of the craft which could be seen. But an enhancement of this photo show much more details of almost the whole ship. The dome and cabin are very distinct.
The most important and sensational Brownie photo is the forth as an enhancement shows both part of a craft and a figure, not noticed on the original print. Olsen makes this comment: ”Did Adamski know that he took this photo of a ”person” and the craft? I am sure he did. This is the only reason why he NEVER talked about these Brownie photos. He must have known what this picture showed (or potentially showed) and in the wrong hands might have revealed that he was in possession of a photo of an extraterrestrial.”
I am not so sure this is the explanation. In the 1950s no one could have found out what was hidden in the photo. The first image-processing software was developed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the 1960s for satellite image processing. There was no Photoshop until the late 1980s.
Glenn Steckling has not provided Olsen with first generation photos from the original negatives of the December 13th photos taken by George Adamski. But Olsen concludes that these classic images represent the same craft as observed on November 20, 1952. Olsen has received good copies of a film taken by George Adamski in Mexico 1957 and the well known Silver Spring film, taken by Madeleine Rodeffer and George Adamski on February 26th, 1965. The enhancements made from still frames of the Silver Spring film reveal many more details than the poor quality copies aviable on YouTube. Olsen has made six enhancements from the film and presents a detailed analysis of how the force field around the craft distort the images and the function of the spheres under craft: ”One ”ball” was kept retracted at all times during the ”display” to make the craft stable and the other two ”balls” were rotated and moved up and down… Had all three ”balls” been retracted the protective field would have been fully operational and not allowed for any details to be shown. The craft would then have been enveloped in the protective magnetic field which would have rendered the craft as a white/light orange form of energy.”
Very fascinating is the analysis of the 45 seconds film taken by George Adamski in Michoacan, Mexico 1957. I have seen it and was like Olsen not very impressed as I couldn´t understand what was going on. A treeline filmed from a moving car with a hardly visible craft in the background, behind some trees. The car eventually stopped and Adamski kept on filming. The enhancements though show some remakable details. The upper part of a craft with semi-transparent column and cabin. We are actually witnessing how the craft is changed from a solid object to a semi-transparent stage: ”… there must be some kind of either very powerful force at work (magnetic force/electromagnetic force) which can make the physical properties of metal (the electron structure of the solid material (metal of the craft) seem to be nullified…”
Photo by George Adamski, December 13, 1952. Notice the semi-transparency of the left sphere.
There are several more photos enhanced and studied by Olsen and also an analysis and discussion about the technology and propulsion systems used in these craft. An obviously very efficient and powerful clean energy, ”which the Planet Earth sorely could use”, concludes Olsen in his final chapter. The last pages of the book is an Image Section with additional Adamski photos and some very beautiful paintings of craft and the ”crew member” Orthon, as imagined by Olsen. Truly a feast for the eye.
Olsen hope to be able to continue investigating and analysing the Adamski photos and films. Hopefully he will also be given access to some of the original negatives for a more definite study. In my correspondence with Rene Erik Olsen I asked him for a summary of what he hopes to achieve with his book and research: ”My small hope is that George Adamski and his photographic work will be taken more seriously today, as it does give us a glimpse of what Adamski was exposed to – and his problems in trying to present (not convince) his facts to the times he lived in. Today our ”informed and enlightened” generation should be able to gain a lot more from his material – if we consider the evidence at hand with an open mind. I, for one, am considering my next book – a much closer look at the technology and evidence for – those flying crafts that was captured on Adamski´s 8mm and 16mm films and his photos.”
(Email from Rene Erik Olsen, May 28, 2018).
(Email from Rene Erik Olsen, May 28, 2018).
My late friend ufologist Franck Boitte was, because of personal experiences, convinced that ”there is in the George Adamski saga much more than meets the eye.” A new generation of investigators and authors have reopened the Adamski case and provided much new information regarding this controversial contactee: Timothy Good, Tony Brunt, Michel Zirger, Maurizio Martinelli and Warren P. Aston. We can now add Rene Erik Olsen to this list. Their findings also support the theory I have personally advanced that some of the 1950s contactees were authentic and involved in a cultural, psychological influence test made by a benevolent groups of alien visitors with access to Vimana technology.
Desmond Leslie and George Adamski 1954
When a revised and very much enlarged edition of Desmond Leslie´s and George Adamskis´s Flying Saucers Have Landed was published in 1970, Flying Saucer Review editor Charles Bowen aptly named it The Book That Was Dynamite. This classic tome, originally published in 1953, changed the course of UFO history and the life of thousands of people – including my own – when I as a young teenager found it in my parents bookshelf. After almost 50 years in the UFO movement it is very seldom that I wholeheartedly and without reservations recommend a new UFO book. The George Adamski Story by Rene Erik Olsen is a real challenge to the UFO research community. The book is only 99 pages, but it is 99 pages of dynamite. Read it!