Were His Astounding Claims Fact Or Fiction? Did He Really Ride In A Space Ship To The Moon And Beyond? Or was It All Merely A Rewrite Of A Work of Science Fiction Published Some Years Before, in the late 1940s? Polish born George Adamski shocked the American public in the early 1950s claiming to have hard evidence that a number of planets in our solar system harbored life and that the occupants of these worlds were very human in appearance, and have been visiting us at least since Biblical times. His claims, he said, were based upon a firsthand encounter with an extraterrestrial in the California desert circa 1953. Adamski's book about this encounter, Flying Saucers Have Landed, became an international best seller. Over the years, Adamski claims to have held meetings with notables such as the Pope and the Queen of the Netherlands, discussing with them his supposed flights into space long before the first Russian cosmonaut. He also provided a set of flying saucer photos taken at his home only a few scant miles away from the base of the world famous Mount Palomar Observatory. The public seemed to be impressed. So much so that Adamski's legion of followers increased in size over the years. Of course there were those who thought the stories were fantasizes and the pictures crude hoaxes. These detractors went so far as to point out that his first book closely resembled a science fiction novel written by Adamski and published in the late 1940. Copies of this initial work -- PIONEERS OF SPACE: A TRIP TO THE MOON, MARS AND VENUS -- have been almost impossible to obtain so that researchers could check the similarities for themselves. A few copies recently turned up on the internet where they were being offered for over $700.00. (Amazon)