15/06/2026
Photos taken at the 4th Annual Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention in May 1957, when 1,200 earthlings gathered in the Mojave Desert to spend their days listening to conventioneers share stories of alien encounters, and spend their nights gazing into stars, hoping for an encounter of their own.
The site chosen for the event was Giant Rock Airport, built next to a seven-story high freestanding boulder thought to be the largest in the world. Its organizer was former aircraft mechanic and flight inspector George Van Tassel, who was leasing the land around the airstrip and was at that time living in an underground home built beneath the boulder.
Also a self-proclaimed “contactee,” Van Tassel would emcee between talks from various “old timers in the saucer research field,” as well as that year’s newcomers, the Mengers, whose New Jersey farm was “visited by a Venusian scout craft” and who entertained the people from Venus in their home, with neighbors and friends.”
My favorite speaker recounted in The Desert Star is Truman Betherum from Prescott, Arizona, who told the crowd he’d been in 11 spaceships, all crewed by “thirty-two men and a woman captain” who say that they “will never allow this planet to be destroyed by atom bombs because they want world peace and are working to help us.” The “space people” also told him to start a Peace on Earth organization, and when he said he didn’t have the means, they suggested he raise funds from the crowd.
That evening, late at night, conventioneers were shaken by a distant explosion as something appeared to crash in the distance. They ran to investigate, but found only the remnants of a prank, as Cal Tech students decided to mess with them by setting off dynamite.
No aliens joined the convention that year. Or if they did, they decided not to make themselves known.
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NOTE: Longtime followers may recall that I previously posted on this back in 2023, on the day “Asteroid City” came out, and I promised more at the time. Can’t think of a better way to celebrate today’s release of “Disclosure Day” than by finally delivering part 2. Overdue, but I think you’ll find they were worth the wait.
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Photos by Ralph Crane for LIFE
