Lost Interview with Ufology Pioneer Riley Crabb Comes to Light - Part 2
By Raymond A. Keller, PhD, a.k.a. “Cosmic Ray,” the author of the international awards-winning Venus Rising Series, published by Headline Books and available on Amazon.com, while supplies last.
Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second Planet
Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus
Cosmic Ray's Excellent Venus Adventure
Lady Columba Venus Revelations
Part I can be found here.
In the early days of television in the Hawaiian Islands, one of the more popular programs was Betty’s Guest Book, aired on the CBS Honolulu affiliate KGMB-TV from 1 to 1:30 p.m. every Thursday. To those senior citizens that can still remember the program, there was an episode that dealt with the most controversial subject of flying saucers that stood out above all the rest. Airing on 27 January 1955, this is perhaps one of the more intriguing interviews ever conducted regarding the UFO phenomenon, insofar as it contains many revelations about the advanced civilizations that exist on other bodies in our own solar system. The guest was Riley Hansard Crabb (2 April 1912-20 January 1994), a prominent researcher of esoterica and the borderland sciences. The following, taken from Dr. Raymond A. Keller’s Venus Files, is Part II of an exact transcript of that program from the audio tape recording made at home off of the television set by Riley’s then second wife, Judy Crabb:
Riley Crabb: Oh, oh, on the screen!
Betty Smyser: There’s another one!
Venusian scout ship photographed by George Adamski in December 1952.
Riley: This flying saucer picture, Betty, was taken by George Adamski in December 1952, over Palomar Gardens in California. You see the shape is quite similar to the one Allingham photographed. There are differences. This one presumably came from Venus. We also have a sketch of the individual Adamski talked to.
Betty: Not a picture, but a sketch?
Riley: Because Adamski wanted to take of picture of the Venusian but was courteously refused. One of Adamski’s witnesses, who observed the spaceman through binoculars, drew the sketch afterward. There’s a picture of Adamski with his telescope and….
Contactee George Adamski adjusts his eight-inch reflecting telescope at his home on the slopes of Mt. Palomar, California.
Betty: There it is!
Riley: Again, you see an almost completely covering spacesuit; however, there’s a wide belt and this individual wore shoes. He’s hatless and his hands are uncovered. He had long blond hair. There were differences. Yet if this spaceman’s hair were cut, he could pass for an Earth man easily, Betty.
Artist’s depiction of Orthon, based on description provided by Adamski. To the right are sketches of the alien’s footprints as made with plaster casts by Adamski’s friend Dr. George Hunt Williamson at the Desert Center, California, site of the 20 November 1952 flying saucer landing.
Betty: Just like the man from Mars. You said that he wouldn’t have any trouble either. He might even be mistaken for an Englishman. Well now, Riley, if men like Allingham and Adamski have done such intensive research and these books are available to the public, what has our government doing about this?
Riley: Even more intensive research and spending millions of dollars.
Betty: Well, this information has not been released to the public, has it?
Riley: A little…. Not much, that’s true. But then our government has much scientific information which is not released to the public- atomic energy developments, for example; things which we have developed ourselves are not public knowledge.
Betty: Yes, that seems to me a different situation from flying saucers; if you’re going to have them landing all over the Earth and people seeing them and writing accounts of them, you’d think our government would tell us what it is doing to find out the origin of these flying saucers.
Riley: Betty, scientific developments since the start of World War II have been highly secret with all governments of the world. Obviously, the performance of these spaceships is the most fabulous scientific discovery of the Earth! If it could be obtained…. I believe that our government and all governments are trying to crack the secret of the propulsion and levitation used by these visitors. We’ll get into that briefly in Leonard Cramp’s book in a few moments.
Betty: We haven’t finished with Mr. Allingham’s book, have we?
Riley: No, we haven’t. Allingham’s interview with the Martian lasted about half an hour. When the spaceman indicated that he had to leave, Allingham asked for a ride in the saucer, but was turned down. The individual got into the ship and it took off. One reason for the comparatively poor quality of Allingham’s pictures is that it was February, late in the day in Scotland; and by 4 p.m., it was getting rather dark. Also, Allingham was only an amateur photographer. We’ve all taken pictures which were blurred, especially if we were nervous.
Betty (laughs): I would have been a nervous wreck. I wouldn’t have been there when the spaceship landed. I’m not that curious; or rather, I think that my fear would have overcome my curiosity. Of have I seen too many of these George Pal science fiction movies? You know, with these horrible monsters that come at you with green eyes? But apparently when it comes to the real McCoy, there doesn’t seem to be anything to fear.
Riley: I don’t see why there should be, Betty. Apparently, they fear us as much or more than we fear them. They do not want us to travel to other planets in our own spaceships until we learn to control ourselves. The space people would hate to see us spread our troubles and our wars to other planets in the solar system.
Betty: You mean, Riley, that until we can get along with all the other countries right here on Earth, we shouldn’t spread out?
Riley: Yes, because the Martian was concerned as to whether or not we had gotten to the Moon. Allingham indicated to him that it would probably be two or three years; but this didn’t seem to make the Martian feel any better.
Betty: Tell me, Riley, would you recommend this book to anyone who has just a slight curiosity about flying saucers? Or is it a technical book only for people like yourself?
Riley: No, Allingham writes in mostly one syllable words which are quite easy to understand; and I would recommend it as a general review of the subject. He was interested in flying saucers for a long time. He has one whole chapter in here on the Moon as a space station and such evidence as the astronomers have picked up, especially in the 19th century, for physical structures, manmade structures on the Moon which have since disappeared. Present-day astronomers are inclined to doubt what was seen in the 19th century because it isn’t there anymore. Allingham suspects the structures were taken down and moved around to the invisible side of the Moon.
Betty: Well, maybe I’ll borrow this from you and read it. You’re doing a very good job of convincing me.
Riley: I’d like to get into the technical side a little now, but not too deeply, ladies.
Betty: Well now, women are very much interested in this!
Riley: You might have noticed in Adamski’s picture of a saucer that it was concave-shaped underneath. In this book, Space, Gravity and Flying Saucers, Leonard Cramp speculates on…. Oh, there’s another picture by Adamski, a closer view showing the hollowness underneath…. And Cramp theorizes about an anti-gravity beam which is focused downward from the saucer, driving it away from the Earth, and the fact that something like an inverted ice cream cone effect has been seen at night by different observers. They have seen a mass of light, cone-shaped, coming down toward the Earth (Crabb sketches this on a pad for the benefit of the television camera). The pressure from this anti-gravity beam apparently ionizes particles in the air, causing them to glow. Well, obviously this is not a flying saucer. This glowing cone is a secondary effect. I have a slide on that, perhaps the next one. No, this picture is another by George Adamski, of a carrier or mother ship launching small scout saucers. This next picture is of two English boys, Stephen Darbyshire and Henry Meyer. Three days previous to Allingham’s experience, these boys picked up a picture of a flying saucer over Lake Coniston. I believe this is the next one. Yes, there it is. Again, the bell shape. This is a corroborating type of thing. There’s the bell shape that Messier talked about in 1777.
Betty: Are there any more of these? I believe we’d better run on to Mr. Cramp, before we run out of time.
Riley: Yes. There is that one of Mr. Cramp’s illustrations. Taking the Darbyshire photograph and making an orthographic projection onto a drawing board for proportion and analysis, he also does the same with one of Adamski’s and shows that the proportions are the same.
Betty (Another slide flashes across the screen): What’s that?
Riley: Oh, that one is just a speculative drawing by Leonard Cramp, a cutaway of what the interior of a little scout saucer might look like.
Betty: Might look like?
Cutaway of bell-shaped Venusian scout ship as it appears in Leonard Cramp’s speculative book, Space, Gravity and the Flying Saucer.
Riley: Yes, pure speculation. And there, there is the cone effect we were talking about. The other illustration with it is the familiar heel or crescent Moon effect.
Betty: And what is that?
Riley: What? Oh, that’s the title to CBS’ You Are There. That’s not mine.
(There is a burst of laughter from the cameraman and the floor director.)
Betty (laughs): No. That’s my producer, Dar Reed, having some fun with us.
Riley (laughing with her): That’s all right with me.
Betty: Well, it sounds to me like this book of Cramp’s is more technical. I think I’d rather read this one, A Flying Saucer from Mars, Riley. But tell me more about this man, Cramp, is he a great authority?
Riley: No, I wouldn’t say that. I don’t know that he has any scientific standing in England, outside of the fact that he is a member of the British Interplanetary Society. All this is speculation as to different means of lift and propulsion. Anyone interested in the subject and with a technical background would enjoy reading it, I feel. It’s not too difficult. I’m no scientist; and I’ve enjoyed it so far.
Betty: Now, Riley, you make talks around town on this subject. What sort of questions do people ask you? After you’ve talked, and you have been a convincing as you have been here on this show today, what sort of questions do you get?
Riley: One of the most common is, “Why are they here?”
Betty: Do you know the answer?
Riley: The answers that have been received by radio and by direct contact indicate that they are here because they are greatly concerned about our activity in nuclear fission. Apparently, they are afraid that the after effects of atomic explosions may spread to the solar system and disturb the orbits of the other planets. They may make some sort of atomic war, if we get one started. They might possibly demagnetize a whole city, stopping all electricity.
Betty: You mean that somebody from Mars or Venus sent this message to Earth?
Riley: Heavens, yes! Radio messages or signals have been received from outer space ever since we have developed radio receivers.
Betty: Well, how can….
Riley: We can’t always translate them.
Betty: That’s what I was going to say: How could they be translated or decoded?
Riley: Some messages have been in English. The (Dr. George Hunt) Williamson group in Arizona has received some messages in International Code, which translated readily into English, and some in voice. That book (A. C. Bailey and Dr. George Hunt Williamson, The Saucers Speak, Los Angeles, California: New Age Publishing, 1954) of messages is available to anyone who wishes to buy it.
Betty: And you believe all of this?
Riley: Well, it ties together, Betty. I’m convinced.
Betty: What do you think is going to happen? According to your information, these flying saucers have been sighted since 1777 and maybe even earlier. Why haven’t they come down in droves and made friends and what not?
Riley: One of the messages from outer space, which I read at my last lecture, indicated that they won’t land in America or elsewhere until the majority of the people are ready to receive them.
Betty: Do you think, then, that they are more advanced than we are?
Riley: They seem to be. Obviously, they are scientifically.
Betty: Yes, their flying saucers, oh my….
Riley: And it would seem that they have solved most of their social problems, the ones which still bother us.
Betty: You mean they don’t have wars?
Riley: Yes.
Betty: You know, this has been an all-male discussion. Has a woman ever come down in a flying saucer?
Riley: That is what Truman Bethurum claims. He was on TV not long ago, on You Asked for It, and told of meeting the crew of a saucer- it was so large- and the leader was a woman. Art Baker had a woman on the program made up like her.
(Truman Bethurum wrote a popular book about his encounter with the female saucer pilot, Aboard a Flying Saucer, Los Angeles, California: DeVorss and Company, 1954.)
Betty: And did she look like a plain woman, just like the man from Mars just looked like a plain man?
Riley: Yes.
Betty: Oh-h-h-h-h-h-h, Riley. I wish we had more time to go on; but perhaps you could come back again some time.
Riley: Possibly when we have new material, Betty?
Betty: Yes, or when one has landed in Hawaii.
Riley: Well, we are considering building a communications device of our own. If we get some messages, we’ll be glad to relay them over your program.
Betty: Well, fine. Perhaps we will have Riley Crabb back again. And Riley, I do want to thank you. Now, I am afraid it’s time to sign off our show. Do come back and see us again.
Riley: I will. And thank you, Betty.
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(Editor’s Note: To contact Dr. Raymond A. Keller with any of your comments or questions about life on Venus or any other aspects of the UFO phenomenon, do not hesitate to write him via e-mail at rkeller1@mix.wvu.edu. Until next time, keep watching the skies!)