During a UFO Convention, seven years after the Roswell UFO Crash Incident, researchers claimed a group of aliens from Venus arrived to learn what we knew about them.
August 1954, UFO Convention on Mt. Palomar
One of the most memorable UFO Conventions of all time took place between August 7th and 8th of 1954. The event was held on the top of Mount Palomar, in the United States, at an altitude of more than 1,800 meters.
This convention was promoted by three of the most famous ‘contactees’: George Adamski, Truman Bethurum and Daniel Fry. More than a thousand people, including journalists from around the world, FBI agents, UFO witnesses, as well as many curious people, attended the event.
Each of the contactees shared their own experience. In Adamski’s turn, the “teacher” explained that Venusians were very much like humans. So much so that they had infiltrated our society and were living in big cities. He also presented a painting with an artistic representation of a Venusian.
An unusual presence of strange visitors
At the end of the first day, there was a stir when the audience noticed an unusual presence of a beautiful woman in the company of two men. One of the men wore glasses. The three were light-skinned and the woman had blond hair, but, oddly, her eyes were black and intense. She had excessive cranial formation, and a strange bone mark on the forehead.
Their features resembled the description presented hours before by speaker Adamski, as the type of aliens that came from Venus and walked among us. The rumor in the crowd spread that they were “Venusians” in disguise.
One of the participants asked them: “Are you or are you not Venusians?” The woman, smiling, calmly replied, “No”. The participant then dialogued with the woman:
– Because we are interested in the subject.
― Do you believe in flying saucers?
– Yes.
― Is it true what Mr Adamski says, that they come from Venus?
– Yes, they come from Venus.
Her name was Dolores Barrios
A Brazilian journalist named João Martins was also present at the convention and also interviewed them. Upon researching, Martins discovered that the woman’s name was Dolores Barrios, a fashion designer from New York, and her friends were Donald Morand and Bill Jackmart, both musicians living in Manhattan Beach, California, as they claimed while signing the guestbook.
Martins asked if he could photograph them, but they refused. They were irritated at being called Venusians. According to Martins, Dolores Barrios looked a lot like the painting Adamski had shown.
The next day, at the end of the meeting, Martins photographed Dolores using a flash, surprising her. Then he took photos of her two friends in a hurry. After that, the trio ran to the forest. Soon afterward, a flying saucer took off, but the witness could not capture a photo.
Nobody ever came forward, claiming they knew or recognized the strange people in the photos.
But is this the fact? Let’s check the original article, the main characters in this major UFO incident, and, most importantly, the era when the event took place.
The background of the UFO Convention in Palomar
The facts described here happened in the summer of 1954, more precisely between August 7 and August 8.
In San Diego, California, the Palomar Observatory hosted these first known UFO Conventions, with essential physicists, astronomers, FBI agents, journalists, contactees, witnesses, and curious people. As we said before, the main event was the panels with the three contactees, George Adamski, Daniel Fry, Truman Bethurum about their alien encounters.
George Adamski’s presentation
George Adamski, a Polish-born American citizen witness, photographed and interacted with extraterrestrial aliens. He claimed he met friendly Nordic-like aliens, whom he called “Space Brothers.”
These Space Brothers were from Venus and landed their flying saucer in the Colorado desert by November 20, 1952. In his contact with the Venusians, he had the opportunity to fly in their craft.
They presented him with a concerned message about the future of the people on Earth. The use of nuclear weapons and wars could put life on the planet at risk.
During Adamski’s presentation, he explained the Venusians’ intentions and morphological structure, just like human beings, with various minor aspects.
Their appearance was almost undetected, and they could live among us unnoticed. To illustrate it, Adamski presented a painting of a Venusian he called Orthon.
The image startled the audience. Among the spectators, the strange looking trio, Dolores Barrios and her friends Donald Morand and Bill Jackmart made this event unique and historical. Obviously, because they were similar to those described by the contactee just a few hours ago.
It was published in the magazine “O Cruzeiro”
“O Cruzeiro,” at the time, was the largest magazine in circulation around South America. The magazin’s reporter, João Martins, narrated the incident in three editions during October of 1954. He was the only journalist covering the event to make it public to the world.
On the other hand, Adamski did not like rumors. He thought it was a people trying to discredit him, portraiting themselves as Venusians.
Criticisms behind George Adamski’s claims
During the 1950s, in the middle of the Cold War, the feeling was the possibility of a Nuclear war. The fear of WWIII was real. Moreover, in 1951, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” debut in the theaters. The story involves a humanoid alien that comes to Earth to deliver a message that the human race needs to live in peace or the planet will perish. It was a similar message delivered by the Venusian Orthon to Adamski. So according to many, it is possible that Adamski fantasized the whole thing in his claims.
On the other hand, throughout the 1950s and 60s, Adamski presented several photos of flying saucers, but some later proved to be hoaxes. The most memorable one possibly involved a surgical lamp and that the landing struts were light bulbs. In other photos, Adamski used a streetlight or the top of a chicken brooder.
Once, George Adamski announced that he received the invitation to a secret audience with Pope John XXIII and earned a “Golden Medal of Honor” from His “Holiness.” In Rome, tourists could purchase precisely the same medal with a cheap plastic box.
Controversies behind João Martins and the media
On May 7, 1952, the reporter João Martins and photographer Ed Keffel were at Quebra-Mar on Rio de Janeiro’s west zone to cover couples seeking a deserted beach date.
After hours of waiting for the opportunity to interview or shoot photos of romantic couples, they claim to have seen a blue-gray circular flying object appeared before them.
The UFO made evolutions in the sky for about a minute, and Ed Keffel took five photographs. They rushed to the lab in time to be published in the “Diário da Noite,” a sensational tabloid. By the morning, the people could see it on the first page.
The next morning, many militaries came to inspect the photos, including colonel Jack Werley Hughes, who believed the images were authentic from the US Embassy.
Eight days later, the magazine “O Cruzeiro” from the same group releases an extra eight pages with photos from what today is known as the Barra da Tijuca UFO Incident.
But years later, other members from the magazine’s staff came forward to confirm that it must be a joke inside the office.
A crowd demanded the release of the “news” by Ed Keffel and Martins’ arrival in the newsroom. Things got out of hand. They photographed an object in a studio with double exposure.
Leao Gondim de Oliveira, director of the magazine, asked for a deep analysis of the negatives to Carlos de Melo Éboli, a criminal expert at the Institute of Criminalistics of Guanabara.
The investigation concluded that the shadows of elements on the scene were divergent. In the fourth photo, the environment’s shadow appears from right to left, and the flying saucer from left to right.
The opinion of the Institute of Criminalistics of Guanabara, however, never became public. The director also declined to accept an offer from Kodak, Rochester, United States, to analyze the negative authenticity. After all, the magazine sales with the subject “Flying Saucers” were high.
Years later, the event in Palomar spread for three issues, in 19 pages total. João Martins and Ed Keffel covered the UFO subject in a large number of articles for “O Cruzeiro”.
Who was Dolores Barrios?
Some researchers affirm that Dolores Barrios was real. However, she was an average person, not a Venusian, lived a good life, married, raised a large family, and passed away in 2008. While some conspiracy theorists claim that she was a cold war spy.
Another group of UFO researchers still maintains the possibility that Dolores Barrios could be a disguised alien. According to them, the name “Dolores Barrios” belonged to a deceased woman. A common practice used by the mob and cold war spies was to take a new identity at the time.
The truth? The truth may lie in a locked drawer of a family that only wants to preserve the memory of their loved ones. We present you with evidence, and you take your conclusions. What do you think?
