extraordinary%20encounters

268 Williamson, George Hunt
UFOs spoke with him at greater length and
examined the landing site, but rain had
washed away whatever might have been there
originally. She alerted the sheriff’s office,
which sent a deputy to investigate. On May 7
a detailed account appeared in the Bingham -
ton Press, after a reporter spoke with a reluctant
Wilcox. Subsequently, Walter N. Webb,
an astronomer and field investigator for the
National Investigations Committee on Aerial
Phenomena, spoke with Wilcox and others.
“Neighbors, friends, and authorities unanimously
agreed that Wilcox had a good reputation
in the area,” Webb would write. Wilcox
had no previous history of interest in the esoteric
and in fact was not much of a reader.
A psychiatric examination conducted by
Berthold Eric Schwarz, M.D., a psychotherapist,
concluded that Wilcox suffered no mental
abnormalities. Unlike many figures in the
contactee movement, Wilcox made no attempt
to exploit his alleged experience. He
discussed it only when asked, and with notable
hesitation. He made no further claims of
encounters with extraterrestrials.
See Also: Allingham’s Martian; Aurora Martian;
Brown’s Martians; Close encounters of the third
kind; Dentons’s Martians and Venusians; Hopkins’s
Martians; Khauga; Martian bees; Mince-
Pie Martians; Monka; Muller’s Martians; Shaw’s
Martians
Further Reading
Hotchkiss, Olga M., 1964. “New York UFO and Its
‘Little People’.” Fate 17, 9 (September): 38–42.
Ochs, Reid A., 1964. “Martian ‘Visit’ Stirs Tioga.”
Binghamton [New York] Press (May 7).
Schwarz, Berthold E., 1983. UFO-Dynamics: Psychi -
atric and Psychic Aspects of the UFO Syndrome.
Two volumes. Moore Haven, FL: Rainbow
Books.
Webb, Walter N., 1965. The Newark Valley-Conklin,
New York, Incidents: The Binghamton Area Flap of
1964. Cambridge, MA: self-published.
Williamson, George Hunt (1926–1986)
George Hunt Williamson was a leading figure
in the contactee movement of the 1950s. On
that fringe he even had a reputation as a
scholar and deep thinker, even if by main-
stream standards his ideas about ancient and
modern visitations from space by friendly and
hostile extraterrestrials seemed the product of
a fertile, even crankish imagination. Williamson
claimed not only to have witnessed
George Adamski’s meeting with a Venusian in
the California desert in November 1952 but
also to have had contacts with space people
himself. A colorful, intelligent, and educated
man, Williamson advanced many ideas that
still circulate in popular culture, though he
himself dropped out of sight in the 1960s and
died in obscurity in Long Beach, California,
in January 1986.
Born in Chicago, Williamson pursued archaeological
and anthropological interests in
college. Several psychic experiences in his
youth drew him to the occult and the paranormal,
and then to flying saucers. He had
close contacts with the Chippewa and the
Hopi and lived with them in the early 1950s.
In 1952, while residing in Prescott, Arizona,
he and his wife, Betty, met Alfred and Betty
Bailey. The two couples attempted to contact
saucers and soon began receiving messages,
through automatic writing and the ouija
board, from visitors from Venus, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. Then one message,
from Zo of Neptune, informed them
that they would be receiving Morse code signals
on the radio. They were instructed to approach
one of Bailey’s coworkers, Lyman
Streeter, who was a ham-radio operator. Soon
Streeter, his wife, and the two other couples
were hearing from extraterrestrials with colorful
names: Zo, Affa, Um, and Regga. Further
communications took place through radio
and mental telepathy.
Through his reading, Williamson heard of
George Adamski, a Californian who was producing
pictures of alleged spacecraft. The two
exchanged letters, and Adamski invited
Williamson to visit him at his home in Palomar
Gardens. In the presence of the
Williamsons and the Baileys, Adamski channeled
messages from space people. On November
20, alerted that a landing would
occur, the two couples met with Adamski and