[4] In addition to his contributions to ufology in the United States, Adamski's work became popular in other countries, especially Japan and helped inspire many depictions of aliens and UFOs in postwar Japanese culture and media.

"[8] In the early 1930s, while living in Southern California, Adamski founded the "Royal Order of Tibet" in Laguna Beach, which held its meetings in the "Temple of Scientific Philosophy".

However, the end of Prohibition in December 1933 also marked the decline of his profitable wine-making business, and Adamski later told two friends that's when he "had to get into this [flying] saucer crap.

"[10] In 1940, Adamski, his wife, and some close friends moved to a ranch near California's Palomar Mountain, where they dedicated their time to studying religion, philosophy, and farming.

[3][6][7] At the campground and diner, Adamski "often gave lectures on Eastern philosophy and religion, sometimes late into the night" to students, admirers, and tourists.

[14] On 9 October 1946, during a meteor shower, Adamski and some friends claimed that while they were at the Palomar Gardens campground, they witnessed a large cigar-shaped "mother ship.

In these lectures he made "fantastic" claims, such as "that government and science had established the existence of UFOs two years earlier, via radar tracking of 700-foot-long spacecraft on the other side of the Moon.

"[15] However, as one UFO historian has noted, "even in the early 1950s [Adamski's] assertions about surface conditions on, and the habitability of, Venus, Mars, and the other planets of the solar system flew in the face of massive scientific evidence ...'mainstream' ufologists were almost uniformly hostile to Adamski, holding not only that his and similar contact stories were fraudulent, but that the contactees were making serious UFO investigators look ridiculous.

Shortly afterwards, according to Adamski's accounts, a scout ship made of a type of translucent metal landed close to him, and its pilot, a Venusian called Orthon,[19] disembarked and sought him out.

[1][6][20][21] During the conversation, Orthon purportedly warned of the dangers of nuclear war, and Adamski later wrote that "the presence of this inhabitant of Venus was like the warm embrace of great love and understanding wisdom.

Its genesis had been Leslie chancing upon a copy of the 1896 book The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria by William Scott-Elliot in a friend's library.

[32] Adamski said he learned that he had been selected by Nordic aliens to bring their message of peace to Earth people, and that other humans throughout history had also served as their messengers, including Jesus Christ.

[32] Adamski's stories led other people to come forward with their own claims of contact and interplanetary travels with friendly "Space Brothers", including such figures as Howard Menger, Daniel Fry, George Van Tassel, and Truman Bethurum.

[4] Adamski's claims of traveling aboard a UFO inspired an elaborate hoax perpetrated by British astronomer Patrick Moore and his friend Peter Davies using the false identity Cedric Allingham.

In 1953 he told a meeting of the Corona, California Lions Club that his "material has all been cleared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Air Force Intelligence.

The Royal Netherlands Air Force Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Haye Schaper said "The man's a pathological case.

"[3] Time magazine reported that the Amsterdam newspaper de Volkskrant said: "Once again, Queen Juliana's weakness for the preternatural had landed her back in the headlines: she had invited to the palace a crackpot from California who numbered among his friends men from Mars, Venus and other solar-system suburbs.

[46] On 23 April 1965, aged 74, Adamski died of a heart attack at a friend's home in Silver Spring, Maryland, shortly after giving a UFO lecture in Washington, DC.

[49] However, all scientific evidence, as well as later lunar trips by American astronauts, clearly showed that the entire surface of the Moon is barren of life and has no atmosphere.

In his writings, Adamski claimed he travelled to Venus, Mars, and other planets in Earth's solar system, and clearly stated that they were all capable of supporting humanoid life.

[52] However, in his 1955 investigation into Adamski's claims, James W. Moseley interviewed Marley, who stated that he had never enlarged the photos for analysis nor found a "spaceman" in them, and did not know of anyone who had.

Moseley also interviewed German rocket scientist Walther Johannes Riedel, who told him that he had analyzed Adamski's UFO photos and found them to be fakes.

[53] Riedel told Moseley that the UFO's "landing struts" were actually 100-watt General Electric light bulbs, and that he had seen the round "GE" logo printed on them.

[53] In 2012, UFO researcher Joel Carpenter identified the reflector-shade of a widely available 1930s pressurised-gas lantern as an identical visual match to the main portion of Adamski's saucer.

Jerrold Baker, who had worked at Palomar Gardens with Adamski, told Moseley that he had overheard "a tape-recorded account of what was to transpire on the desert, who was to go, etc."

"[56] During the early-to-mid 1950s, USAF Captain Edward J. Ruppelt was the head of Project Blue Book, the Air Force group assigned to investigate UFO reports.

In describing Adamski's speaking style, Ruppelt wrote "to look at the man and listen to his story you had an immediate urge to believe him ... he was dressed in well-worn, but neat, overalls.

There is no old age, they have learned the secret of eternal life ... Too many times this subtle pitch can be boiled down to, "Step right up folks and put a donation in the pot.

"[4] According to Ruppelt, by 1960, Adamski's UFO lectures and in particular his first two books, had brought him financial security: "[His] hamburger stand is boarded up and he now lives in a big ranch house.

Ruppelt humorously noted that by 1960 two "beautiful spacewomen" who claimed to be Nordic aliens were dating Adamski, a blonde from Saturn called "Kalna" and another woman named "Ilmuth".