James Willett Moseley (August 4, 1931 – November 16, 2012) was an American observer, author, and commentator on the subject of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
Yet Jim did believe a core of the UFO phenomenon was real and truly unexplained after filtering out all the hoaxes, conspiracy theories, mis-identifications and just plain nonsense that pervades much of the field.
James never got along with his father, taking particular exception to his outspoken racist and anti-semitic views, including his claims that America must "breed up" its own decaying population by copying Nazi eugenics practices, and launch a program of "selective breeding, sterilization, the elimination of the unfit, and the elimination of those types which are inimical to the general welfare of the nation.
[3][7] Moseley took up amateur archaeology and he made many trips to Peru, and to a lesser extent Ecuador and northern Chile, purchasing and digging up pre-Columbian antiquities.
He interviewed almost 100 UFO experts and eyewitnesses: he visited the Pentagon and examined their files on UFO investigations; he visited the Project Blue Book facilities at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, meeting Col. Bob Friend; he interviewed the famous saucer author Major Donald E. Keyhoe, and felt that "Keyhoe routinely made too much out of too little, at least in part just to sell books";[7][better source needed] he went to Mt.
[10]: 45 The book with Ken Krippene never eventuated, but Moseley's interest in UFOs deepened during his research and he also came to a realization: "I had discovered I wasn’t cut out to be a serious UFOlogist, unless of course one was to count the work I did exposing Adamski and, as time went on, certain other fakers and frauds.
[1] Beyond the fake feuds (particularly with Gray Barker) and occasional hoaxes, Saucer News also featured serious research and reporting about UFOs, drawing heavily on the material he had gathered during his 1953 cross-country trip.
He gave many lectures about flying saucers, and even made several trips to Giant Rock in the California desert, a sort of Woodstock for UFO contactees and their followers.
He was a semi-regular guest of Long John Nebel's radio show which dealt mainly with anomalous phenomena, UFOs, and other offbeat topics.
[12][13] In 1966, there was a new wave of UFO publicity, kicked off by the incident in Michigan where Allen Hynek offered his "swamp gas" explanation which became famous.
Moseley's lecturing took off after this: the story was hot... "back in New York City, all the major national news organizations were rushing around trying to find an instant saucer expert to interview and quote.
"[11]: 193 To give his readers a sense of this activity, Moseley published his appearance schedule in Saucer News: during the month of April 1967, for example, he delivered nine formal lectures at universities and colleges, and he gave another six media interviews.
He arranged a wide range of well-known speakers, including Joe Franklin of WOR-TV, Gordon Evans, Art Ford, Frank Stranges, John Keel, Stewart Robb, Gray Barker, James Randi, Long John Nebel, Howard Menger, Ivan Sanderson, and Roy Thinnes, the star of the hit ABC-TV science fiction thriller The Invaders.
[3][15] In 1971, Moseley became Permanent Chairman of the National UFO Conference (NUFOC), whose main purpose was to organize and run an annual meeting or convention.
It typically had a joking, gossipy tone and it covered not just UFO cases, but also examined the personalities of UFOlogists and it did not hesitate to poke fun at people if he thought they deserved it.
In 1992, Moseley donated his Peruvian collection to the Graves Museum of Archaeology and Natural History in Dania, Florida, where it is on permanent display.
[9] George Adamski was a teacher of the occult,[17] who wrote a book in 1953 entitled Flying Saucers Have Landed, which told the story of his encounter with an extraterrestrial named Orthon.
Adamski started to produce an abundance of apparent "evidence": multiple witnesses, physical traces, photographs and later he took movies of the saucer while he claimed to have ongoing contact with the visitors from space and share their message of peace and love with the people of Earth.
Governmental official letterhead and envelopes from a friend – white-seal, blue-embossed paper, with the American eagle watermark and the Seal of State impressed.
Straith wrote that the government knew that Adamski had actually spoken to extraterrestrials in a California desert in 1952, and that the department also had its own evidence bearing out his claims.
[26] Moseley later wrote in his book "In addition to showing the film on New York–area television and at one of the Saucer News monthly lectures, I incorporated it and the story behind it into my American Program Bureau talk.